Telecommunications Signaling
Highlights the conventions of signalling systems and provides a detailed assessment of their architecture.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Telecommunications Signaling
18.5: Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)
18.5 Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)
Whereas the Internet Protocol (IP) is kept very simple, with little error detection capability, the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)4 is designed to provide a higher degree of reliability and availability. TCP is required to provide services for a wide variety of users. TCP is a connection-oriented protocol and is designed to provide communications between hosts belonging to interconnected networks.
18.5.1 Architecture
TCP fits within the Host-to-Host Layer of the IP Model, as illustrated in Fig. 18.3. It makes use of the Internet Layer to provide network functions (typically the IP). It supplies services to the Application Layer and users.
The interfaces to higher layers are described in detail. The interfaces to lower layers (e.g. to IP) are only described in terms of being able to transfer data. This assumes that the interfaces to lower layers are specified by those lower layers. This allows a flexible approach to implementation, but it must be ensured that the lower layers do include the definition of the interface: the efficacy of the layered architecture is significantly reduced if the interfaces are not clearly defined.
18.5.2 Functions
(a) Segments
Data is transferred between the TCP and the lower layer (IP in this example) in 'TCP Segments' (also called 'Transport Messages'). Each segment has a header that contains fields covering addresses, sequence numbers, etc. The format of the header is explained in Section 18.5.3.
(b) Data Transfer
In general, information supplied by a user is transferred by the TCP according to...
Copyright The Institution of Electrical Engineers 1999 under license agreement with Books24x7
