Standard protocol TCP / IP

TCP/IP, in full Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, standard Internet communicationsprotocols that allow digital computers to communicate over long distances. The Internet is a packet-switched network, in which information is broken down into small packets, sent individually over many different routes at the same time, and then reassembled at the receiving end. TCP is the component that collects and reassembles the packets of data, while IP is responsible for making sure the packets are sent to the right destination. TCP/IP was developed in the 1970s and adopted as the protocolstandard for ARPANET (the predecessor to the Internet) in 1983.

TCP/IP is two separate protocols, TCP and IP, that are used together. The Internet Protocol standard dictates how packets of information are sent out over networks. IP has a packet-addressing method that lets any computer on the Internet forward a packet to another computer that is a step (or more) closer to the packet's recipient. The Transmission Control Protocol ensures the reliability of data transmission across Internet connected networks. TCP checks packets for errors and submits requests for re-transmissions if errors are found; it also will return the multiple packets of a message into a proper, original sequence when the message reaches its destination.

Many Internet users are familiar with the even higher layer application protocols that use TCP/IP to get to the Internet. These include the World Wide Web's Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), the File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Telnet (Telnet) which lets you logon to remote computers, and the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). These and other protocols are often packaged together with TCP/IP as a "suite."

Protocols related to TCP/IP include the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), which is used instead of TCP for special purposes. Other protocols are used by network host computers for exchanging router information. These include the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP), the Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP), the Exterior Gateway Protocol (EGP), and the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP).