Frame Relay is rarely used now. It is a two-tier technology. It was once used to carry IP and other three-layer networks in data networks. Because it defines traffic shaping, congestion control and other traffic control technologies, and has the mechanism of quality of service, it has been widely used.

1. Using optical fiber as transmission medium, the bit error rate is extremely low, which can realize approximate error-free transmission, reduce error detection overhead and improve network throughput. Its data transmission rate and transmission delay are at least one order of magnitude higher or lower than that of X.25 network.

2. Because of the asynchronous multiplexing technology based on variable-length frames, Frame Relay is mainly used for data transmission, but not for voice, video or other time-sensitive information transmission.

3. Only provide connection-oriented virtual circuit services.

4. Only transmission errors can be detected, without trying to correct them, and the wrong frames are simply discarded.

5. The frame length is variable, and the maximum allowable frame length is above 1600B.

6. Frame Relay is a kind of broadband packet switching, and the transmission rate can be as high as 44.6Mbps when multiplexing technology is adopted.

It is a new switching technology based on circuit switching and packet switching.