• A data communications interface originating from ISDN designed to provide high speed frame or packet transmission with minimum delay and efficient use of bandwidth.
• Variation on the X.25 interface and form of fast packet switching
• It derives its name from using the Data Link or "frame" OSI layer Two to route or "relay" a packet directly to its destination instead of terminating the packet at each switching node. This eliminates processing overheads and increases throughput speed
• It uses variable-length packets and applicable only to sub-broadband, T3/E3 or lower, data transmission
• Like Ethernet, or token ring, frame relay assumes that connections are reliable. It does not have error detection and error control within the network, which helps to speed up the protocol. When errors occur frame relay relies on higher level protocols for error control
• Frame relay is often viewed as a replacement for X.25, primarily for LAN-to-LAN bursty traffic