| Internet applications
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Application
Layers
| Suite of Internet protocols (TCP/IP)
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Internet
Layers
Network
| International data communication backbone systems
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Layers
The key Internet protocols are TCP and IP, which stand for Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol. TCP handles the data and splits large messages and data files into smaller packets or 'datagram’s that can be sent easily and independently from one computer to another at the opposite end of internal data communication networks. To each datagram TCP attaches labels, and these are used to reassemble them into the original messages and data files at their final destination. IP creates 'envelopes' around each datagram on which it stamps the addresses of both the computer that sent the message and the one that receive it. Once released, each envelope finds its way to its destination on its own, a process that is t along by the routers, i.e. 'intelligent' computers that contain maps of the network which they use to messages and data files from source to destination. The key idea is that the datagram's travel through the jumble of national and international communication networks independently, and that there actually lasting connection between the two communicating computers.
