Frame relay is a digital packet switching technology designed for cost efficient data transmission for irregular traffic between local area networks and wide area network. A packet-switching protocol for connecting devices on a Wide Area Network (WAN).

Frame Relay is a telecommunication service ideally suited to carrying traffic that is of bursty or irregular in nature. Frame relay networks in the United States support data transfer rates at T1 and T3 speeds. Frame relay is based on the older X.25 packet-switching technology which was designed for transmitting analog data Frame relay puts data in a variable-size unit called a frame.

Frame relay data originate from the private line and transfer through a shared network and then transfer to a private line at the destination side.

Frame relay is a very fast packet technology, which means that the protocol does not attempt to correct errors. When an error is detected in a frame, it is simply drop the frame. The end points are responsible for detecting and retransmitting dropped frames.Frame relay is normally less expensive than point-to-point lines.