Learn English – what’s the difference between Transfer, Transport and Transmission as the noun

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FTP is short for File Transfer Protocol, while TCP is short for Transmission Control Protocol, the layer in which TCP resides is called Transport Layer. What's the difference of them?

Best Answer

From MacMillan:

transfer, v. tr. : to copy information or images from one place or object to another

transport, v. tr. : to move people or things from one place to another, usually in a vehicle

transmit, v. tr. : if a substance transmits light, sound, or energy, the light, sound, or energy can pass through it

FTP is a protocol for transferring files from one computer to another.

The transport layer is the vehicle for moving data. As this site explains, "the transport layer relieves the upper layers from any concern with providing reliable and cost effective data transfer." In other words, the other layers don't have to know how the truck (transport layer) works; they just have to know the truck is there.

TCP allows two hosts to transmit packets; conceptually, the packets pass through the medium of TCP without loss, and without being reordered.

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