5.3.6

Did My Data Arrive Safely?

Test yourself

Did my Data Arrive Safely?

Interference across a network can cause data to become corrupted (changed) as it is transmitted to the recipient.

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Lost packets

  • Some packets might get lost within the network.
  • Each packet transfer will have a certain timeout, which is the maximum amount of time that the packet transfer is expected to take.
  • If the time taken is more than the timeout, then we send a timeout signal to the sender to ask them to re-send the packet.
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Checksums

  • A checksum is a piece of data which is generated from the payload.
  • When data is assembled into packets, we calculate the checksum and send this along with the packet.
  • When the data is received, the recipient can re-calculate the checksum from the data they receive and compare it to the checksum they received.
    • If the values are different, then some of the data was corrupted.
    • They can then request the data again.
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Confirmation message

  • If all packets have been successfully received, then a confirmation message is sent to the sender.
  • This lets them know that there were no issues in transmission that they might need to fix.

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1Problem Solving

2Programming

3Data

4Computers

5Communication & The Internet

6The Bigger Picture

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