Protocol overhead is the extra information that must be sent with data across a network. Network packets contain data and information for the receiver, but also have overhead from network protocols. TCP/IP has significant overhead, and wireless protocols have large headers that reduce available bandwidth.
Protocol overhead in computer networks refers to the information that must be sent with the data routed across the network to a destination. The information is stored at the beginning of the packet and is called a header. Depending on the exact network protocol used, there can be a wide variety of information in the header, but mostly it’s the destination address and the source address. Even if a protocol between two applications uses little or no protocol overhead, the information will be wrapped up in a network protocol with overhead to send through routers to get to the correct destination.
Network data packets are one of the basic concepts of network communication that make it possible to transmit data across the Internet and other networks. A packet contains the actual data being transmitted, along with all the information the receiving application or device needs to figure out what it is. When routed between two points across the Internet, a packet might be wrapped inside another packet with a network protocol that helps route information through different nodes to reach the destination location. This wrapper packet will contain specific information that is not relevant to the data being sent and is considered protocol overhead.
A widely used network protocol is called Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). Packets sent over TCP/IP have a protocol overhead, ranging from 40 to 80 bytes per packet. TCP/IP also has a programmed behavior that actually creates even more overhead. When a TCP/IP packet is delivered to a destination within a network, it sends an acknowledgment to the sender of the delivered packet. This acknowledgment often contains no data and is considered 100% protocol overhead.
One area where protocol overhead may be of particular concern is when using wireless Internet or Wi-Fi®. Signals transmitted from a wireless router to a computer travel through the air and can be intercepted, so the wireless protocol has a very large header that is attached to every packet sent. Many packets can be transmitted to a computer every second and each packet contains the complete header. The size of the protocol overhead for a Wi-Fi® packet comes from the security, authorization, and ordering requirements of the packets. This causes the bandwidth available for actual data to be less with a Wi-Fi® protocol than with a machine that is wired to the Internet.
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