TCP

The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is one of the core protocols of the Internet Protocol Suite. TCP was one of the two original components, with Internet Protocol (IP), of the suite, so that the entire suite is commonly referred to as TCP/IP. Whereas IP handles lower-level transmissions from computer to computer as a message makes its way across the Internet, TCP operates at a higher level, concerned only with the two end systems, for example, a Web browser and a Web server. In particular, TCP provides reliable, ordered delivery of a stream of bytes from a program on one computer to another program on another computer. Besides the Web, other common applications of TCP include e-mail and file transfer. Among its other management tasks, TCP controls message size, the rate at which messages are exchanged, and network traffic congestion.