Why is TCP considered reliable in data transfer?

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TCP, or Transmission Control Protocol, is considered reliable in data transfer primarily because it guarantees data order and integrity. Reliability in this context means that TCP provides mechanisms to ensure that data sent from a source is received accurately and in the same order it was sent.

This reliability is achieved through a combination of features:

  1. Sequence Numbering: Each segment of data sent over a TCP connection is assigned a sequence number. This helps the receiving end to reassemble the data in the correct order, even if packets arrive out of sequence.

  2. Acknowledgments (ACKs): When a receiver gets a segment of data, it sends an acknowledgment back to the sender. If the sender does not receive an acknowledgment for a segment within a certain timeframe, it can infer that the segment was lost, and it retransmits it.

  3. Error Checking: TCP includes a checksum that helps detect errors in the transmitted data. If the checksum does not match, the data is presumed corrupted, and the receiver can request a retransmission.

  4. Flow Control and Congestion Control: TCP manages the rate of data transmission to prevent overwhelming the network capacity, which helps further ensure that all data is received accurately without loss.

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