Review of Telephone and Data Network Protocols The Internet protocol suite is a highly related collection of protocols. It is also commonly referred to as TCP/IP. TCP and IP were the first and main protocols developed for internetworking. However, it is composed of many other protocols that work together to perform each distinct task required for communication on and to other components of the network. Based on the network topology and devices residing on the network, the protocols that will be discussed are IMCP, TCP, IP, UDP, DNS, FTP, HTTP, IMAP4, POP3, SIP, SMTP, SNMP, SSH, and Rlogin. These protocols are an integral part of Ethernet networks; some are necessary, some are optional, and some should be avoided but replaced with better solutions. The Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) is a network layer protocol. “It is one of the core protocols of the Internet protocol suite.” IMCP is primarily used to report network errors on the network commonly encountered when pinging or using trace paths when troubleshooting connectivity issues. The Transport Control Protocol (TCP) is the interface between the application layer and the network layer. TCP provides a reliable connection between applications and the network. In contrast, UDP does not provide a reliable connection. Send packages regardless of delivery or sequence. However the advantage of UDP is that it is fast. “While the total amount of UDP traffic found on a typical network is often only on the order of a few percentage points, numerous key applications use UDP, including the Domain Name System (DNS), the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) and Routing Information Protocol (RIP), to name just a few."3Internet Protocol (IP) is the protocol used to encapsulate data in a packet and then assign a unique address of the source and destination of the packet in the packet header. "Because of the abstraction provided by encapsulation, IP can be used across a heterogeneous network (e.g., a network connecting two computers can be any mix of Ethernet, ATM, FDDI, Wi-fi, Token ring, etc. .) and makes no difference to higher layer protocols."5 This is one reason why IP is widely used and accepted in the telecommunications industry. The downside of IP is that it is inherently unreliable. However, combined with the reliability of TCP and the flexibility of MPLS, makes this disadvantage a moot point.