Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)

TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) is one of the main protocols of the Internet protocol suite. It lies between the Application and Network Layers which are used in providing reliable delivery services. It is a connection-oriented protocol for communications that helps in the exchange of messages between different devices over a network. The Internet Protocol (IP), which establishes the technique for sending data packets between computers, works with TCP. 

Features of TCP

• TCP keeps track of the segments being transmitted or received by assigning numbers to every single one of them.
• Flow control limits the rate at which a sender transfers data. This is done to ensure reliable delivery.
• TCP implements an error control mechanism for reliable data transfer.
• TCP takes into account the level of congestion in the network.

Advantages of TCP

• It is reliable for maintaining a connection between Sender and Receiver.
• It is responsible for sending data in a particular sequence.
• Its operations are not dependent on OS.
• It allows and supports many routing protocols.
• It can reduce the speed of data based on the speed of the receiver.

Disadvantages of TCP

• It is slower than UDP and it takes more bandwidth.
• Slower upon starting of transfer of a file.
• Not suitable for LAN and PAN Networks.
• It does not have a multicast or broadcast category.
• It does not load the whole page if a single data of the page is missing.

Prerequisite – Transport Layer responsibilities

Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and User Datagram Protocol (UDP) both are protocols of the Transport Layer. TCP is a connection-oriented protocol where as UDP is a part of the Internet Protocol suite, referred to as the UDP/IP suite. Unlike TCP, it is an unreliable and connectionless protocol.