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TCP can ride over a connection-oriented link or a connectionless link. TCP established a session connection between two end hosts (i.e. computers) but the reference to "connection" here is different than what's referred to in "connection-oriented". A connection-oriented link means that a virtual circuit (in Frame Relay a PVC or permanent virtual circuit) is setup and each packet (or frame or cell) will travel over the same path each time between the origination and destination. This path is defined when the virtual circuit is setup the first time. The only time this path will change is if there is a failure that causes the PVC to have to be setup again. In a connection-less link, the path for each packet is determined at each router hop. It is possible for two packets going from an origination to a destination to take two different paths. This was first published in October 2002