2 – How TCP/IP and Ethernet Work

The data that travel across a network is serial or parallel. With serial data transmission, each bit (0 or 1 value) travels single file. Parallel data transmission sends rows of bits—32, 64, 128, or more— at a time. The top three layers in the transmission control protocol/ Internet protocol (TCP/IP) stack are independent of the hardware used by the network. The remaining layers of TCP/IP are hardware-dependent, and there are multiple sets of protocol specifications that correspond to different types of hardware. The application layer handles the interaction with the end user. Some commonly used TCP/IP application layer protocols include: hypertext transport protocol (HTTP), simple mail transport protocol (SMTE), and file transfer protocol (FTP). The transport layer contains two protocols that differ in the way in which they operate, TCP and user datagram protocol (UDP). Internet layer has two protocols—IP and Internet control message protocol (ICMP).