Finally, diversity should not be shunned. We should use technology to cloak the network's complexities and to provide ease of use in an interoperable world. ATM has a payload of 48 bytes and a 5 byte header. IP, because it is variable size, you have to look at representative cases. Small payload carries a larger penalty - on the order of about 37 percent.
Internet telephony is an example of a case in which there is a small payload.
With delay sensitive communications there is typically a smaller payload. File transfer has a larger average payload. In packet versus switching, there is a trade-off between the efficiency of overhead versus bandwidth efficiency. Circuit switching is low overhead, but dedicates a fixed segment of bandwidth to the communications session. In packet switching all traffic is statistically multiplexed across a shared pipe.