Ch 6 · Packet Switching · Theory
Topic 6 of 10 in Networks & Data Transmission — How Machines Talk — 2 lessons.
Breaking Data into Packets
Data sent across the internet is split into small packets. Each packet carries the data plus a header (source, destination, and its position in the sequence). Packets travel independently, possibly by different routes, and are reassembled in order at the destination.
Reassembly
Because each packet is numbered, the receiver can reorder them correctly even if they arrive out of sequence — and request just the missing ones.