Store-and-forward Transmission

Is an approach used by packet switches, where an entire packet must be received before the packet switch can begin transmitting the first bit of the packet into the outbound link. The

With this approach the end-to-end delay for sending $P$ packets of $L$ bits back-to-back over $N$ communication links with transmission rate $R$ is

$$d_{\text{store-and-forward}}=(N+P-1)\frac{L}{R}$$

In addition to this, the packets might experience Queuing Delay.

Another issue is that the packet switches have finite Output Buffers, and if this is full when a new packet arrives then Packet Loss occurs.