A Protocol for Packet
Network Intercommunication
Wei Zhang (wez5@lehigh.edu)
Introduction

Why interconnect?


Facilitate the sharing of computer resources.
Difficulty in intercommunication




Each network may have distinct addressing
scheme.
Each network may accept data of different
maximum size.
The success or failure of a transmission
Recovery from the communication disruption
An important concept

GATEWAY



It is an interface between networks and plays a
central role.
It routes the data in a store and forward fashion.
So it works like an interpreter.
It is critical for the implementation of the
intercommunication.
Network 1
Network 2
GATEWAY
Solutions from the paper

Address Formats
Network (8 bits)

Segmentation and Reassembly


TCP Identifier (16 bits)
Due to the different MTU in each network.
Retransmission and Duplicate Detection

Guarantee the correctness of the transmission.
Solutions from the paper

Flow Control


Avoid overwhelming the recipients.
Connections and Associations

Unlike circuit switching network, there’s not a fixed
path between two hosts. The path may vary,
depending on the networking environment.