Transmission Control Protocol

Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is a reliable, connection-oriented protocol used in the Transport Layer of the TCP/IP suite. It provides a virtual circuit between the source and destination hosts and ensures reliable, ordered delivery of data by breaking it into segments and retransmitting lost segments as necessary.

TCP operates by establishing a three-way handshake between the source and destination hosts to establish a connection. Once the connection is established, data can be sent bidirectionally between the hosts. TCP provides flow control and congestion control mechanisms to prevent network congestion and ensure reliable delivery of data. Flow control regulates the amount of data sent at any one time, while congestion control monitors the network and adjusts the data rate to prevent congestion.

TCP also provides mechanisms for error detection and recovery. It uses checksums to detect errors in data and retransmits lost or corrupted data segments. TCP also supports multiplexing, which allows multiple applications to use the same connection simultaneously.

TCP is used by many applications that require reliable, error-checked transmission of data, such as web browsing, email, file transfer, and remote login. However, TCP’s reliability comes at the cost of increased overhead and slower transmission speeds compared to connectionless protocols like UDP.