Frame Relay

An efficient data transmission technique used to send digital information quickly and cheaply in a relay of frames to one or many destinations from one or many end-points. Network providers commonly implement frame relay for voice and data as an encapsulation technique, used between local area networks (LANs) over a wide area network (WAN). Each end-user gets a private line (or leased line) to a frame-relay node. The frame-relay network handles the transmission over a frequently-changing path transparent to all end-users.

As of 2006 native IP-based networks have gradually begun to displace frame relay. With the advent of MPLS, VPN and dedicated broadband services such as cable modem and DSL, the end may loom for the frame relay protocol and encapsulation. There remain, however, many rural areas lacking DSL and cable modem services, and in such cases the least expensive type of "always-on" connection remains a 128-kilobit frame-relay line. Thus a retail chain, for instance, may use frame relay for connecting rural stores into their corporate WAN.

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