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Communication Technology |
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Protocol
When you first get into the area of any kind of communication technology, one of the words that you hear the most frequently would be the term 'Protocol'.
What is Protocol ? What does it mean ? The most generic defintion would be : Protocol is a set of rules that are required to do something Depending on what you mean by the 'something', the meaning of the Protocol would vary a little bit. If the 'something' is related to Communication Technology, I think a good definition can be the one from SearchNetworking as follows : A protocol is the special set of rules that end points in a telecommunication connection use when they communicate. Protocols specify interactions between the communicating entities. Even if you are not in communication technology, you might have been using this term in every day life. A couple of common example you are familiar with would be HTTP, TCP, FTP etc. The letter 'P' in these term refer to 'Protocol'. Following is an example set of rule for FTP (File Transfer Protocol). You don't have to understand all of the details shown here if you are not really interested. I just want you to get soome intuitive feeling .. like PC (A) sends a message to PC (B) and the PC (B) sends response to PC (A). These two PCs go through a lot of back-and-forth to perform the overall task called 'File Transfer'. This kind of 'set of back-and-forth' is called a 'Protocol'.
You don't have to blindly memorize the definition of the protocol. Just memorization would not give you real understanding. Just try to look through real examples of various protocols. You would gradually understand what the protocol is even when you may not clearly states the definition.
Web related protocol/Internet Protocol : HTTP, HTTPS,TCP/IP, FTP,RTP etc
WLAN Protocol : 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ad
Celluar Protocol : LTE, WCDMA, GSM, CDMA
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