packet switching

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A method of data transmission in which data is broken into small blocks that are transmitted over different channels and are reassembled into their original order at their destination.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun computing a means of directing digitally encoded information in a communication network from its source to its destination, in which messages may be divided into smaller entities called packets, each of which travels independently through the network in paths based on moment to moment routing decisions made by the nodes through which they pass.