An agreed-upon or standardized method for transmitting data and establishing communications between different devices.
Definition: A network protocol defines rules and conventions for communication between network devices. Protocols for computer networking all generally use packet switching techniques to send and receive messages in the form of packets. Some protocols also support message acknowledgement and data compression designed for reliable and/or high-performance network communication. Hundreds of different computer network protocols have been developed each designed for specific purposes and environments. One of the most common and known protocols is HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol), which is a protocol used to transmit data over the world wide web (Internet). Below is a list of the various protocols currently listed in the Computer Hope dictionary. Each protocol has its own method of how data is formatted when sent and what to do with it once received, how that data is compressed or how to check for errors in data. From a user's point of view, the only interesting aspect about protocols is that your computer or device must support the right ones if you want to communicate with other computers. The protocol can be implemented either in hardware or in software. We look at a few of the more troubling aspects of statistics and how these may be used to advance an agenda or skew the facts to someone's... Read More ». From wacky alarm clocks to lecture hall tools and after class entertainment, these Android apps are a good fit for a student's life and budget. Systems typically do not use a single protocol to handle a transmission. Instead they use a set of cooperating protocols, sometimes called a protocol family or protocol suite. Some of the best known protocol suites include: IPX/SPX, X.25, AX.25, AppleTalk and TCP/IP. In telecommunications, a communications protocol is a system of rules that allow two or more entities of a communications system to transmit information via any kind of variation of a physical quantity. A protocol is a system of rules that define how something is to be done. In computer terminology, a protocol is usually an agreed-upon or standardized method for transmitting data and/or establishing communications between different devices. To demonstrate a common usage of a popular protocol, we can examine the Internet's TCP /IP protocol. Computers can communicate different types of information over TCP/IP such as text, pictures, VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol), and more. Sometimes referred to as an access method, a protocol is a standard used to define a method of exchanging data over a computer network such as local area network, Internet, Intranet, etc. Each protocol has its own method of how data is formatted when sent and what to do with it once received, how that data is compressed or how to check for errors in data. Protocol. When computers communicate with each other, there needs to be a common set of rules and instructions that each computer follows. A specific set of communication rules is called a protocol. Because of the many ways computers can communicate with each other, there are many different protocols -- too many for the average person to remember. Some examples of these different protocols include PPP, TCP/IP, SLIP, HTTP, and FTP.  TCP; transmission control protocol (a protocol developed for the internet to get data from one network device to another). TCP/IP; transmission control protocol/internet protocol (a set of protocols (including TCP) developed for the internet in the 1970s to get data from one network device to another).  Protocols are often described in an industry or international standard. The TCP/IP Internet protocols, a common example, consist of: 1  Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), which uses a set of rules to exchange messages with other Internet points at the information packet level. Protocols exist at several levels in a telecommunication connection. For example, there are protocols for the data interchange at the hardware device level and protocols for data interchange at the application program level.
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