Every packet contains the address of its destination and is individually routed through the network.

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For most of a day anyone who attempted to go to AOL.com was routed to his network.

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Then, when you want to chat over Skype, the call is routed over a regular mobile network which then connects to iSkoot's servers.

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And traffic between geographically separated company networks can be routed through a virtual private network (VPN) tunnel instead of being exposed to the open Internet.

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You might have been identified as outside the UK because your computer is on a foreign-based network, or is routed overseas (sometimes the case with work connections if your employer is not UK-based).

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Eighty percent of its volume changes hands directly across the Bats network, and the remainder is routed to other exchanges or ECNs.

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If one of the bricks goes wrong, the network of connections between the others can be re-routed to isolate it.

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Other nations like Cameroon said that Google and other content providers should pay to have their traffic routed to the nation, which it said would help pay for network expansion there.

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Nasdaq is also battling competitive forces at home, including an upstart Kansas City electronic network known as BATS Trading, which has siphoned some 15% of the matched and routed orders from Nasdaq in its own listed shares.

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