Overview

Through an unplugged activity students are introduced to packets, and issues with packets being delayed and dropped. Students invent a protocol to reliably send a message over an unreliable network using the Internet Simulator now configured to be "unreliable" by delaying and randomly dropping packets sent between routers.

Vocab

• Packets - Small chunks of information that have been carefully formed from larger chunks of information.
• TCP - Transmission Control Protocol - provides reliable, ordered, and error-checked delivery of a stream of packets on the internet. TCP is tightly linked with IP and usually seen as TCP/IP in writing.

Resources

• The Internet: Packets, Routing, and Reliability - Video (download)

• Packets and Making a Reliable Internet - Activity Guide (copy as MS Word, Google Doc)