… What is Frame Relay …

Devices that “speak” Frame Relay fall into 1 of 2 categories:  data terminal equipment (DTE) or data circuit-terminating equipment (DCE).

• DTE equipment is at the customer premise and are usually the “user” end of the connection.  Think of terminals, PCs, routers.
• DCE equipment is the service provider end of the connection and provide the clocking and switching services in the FR network.

Frame Relay is a connection-oriented protocol. This means that before data is sent across the FR network an end-to-end (DTE to DTE) path must be established.  This end-to-end path is known as a virtual circuit (VC). NOTE:  Multiple VCs can travel down the same physical wire(s).  Through the use of TDM (time division multiplexing) each VC can get its share of the wire’s available bandwidth.