Connection-oriented communication= a communication that needs a connection establishment prior to sending any data. Opposite is Connectionless communication.
Connection-oriented networks can use circuit switching technologies (eg ATM) or virtual circuit switching technologies (eg Frame Relay and MPLS)
Rather than using destination addresses to determine the path, connection-oriented communications forward the packets belonging to a flow, using the same path during the same connection session. The flow is maintained as long as the connection session is alive.
Each flow is labelled with a “flow identifier” and is propagated to the nodes in the path. Packet transmission occurs at the hardware level, which is faster than connectionless communication networks (eg IP).
References
Computer Networking: A Top Down Approach Featuring The Internet