What is a common characteristic shared by both TCP and UDP?

What is a common characteristic shared by both TCP and UDP?

• A. Encryption of data
• B. Port numbering
• C. Data segmentation
• D. Connection-oriented communication

Answer: (B)

Both TCP and UDP share the characteristic of port numbering, which is essential for facilitating communication between applications on different devices. Port numbers allow multiple applications to use network resources simultaneously. When a device sends data over the network, it includes a source port number and a destination port number in the transport layer header. This differentiation enables the underlying system to route incoming data to the correct application once it reaches its destination. While TCP is connection-oriented, providing reliable, ordered, and error-checked delivery of data, UDP is connectionless, offering no such guarantees. Data segmentation is also a unique feature of TCP, which breaks down data into smaller packets before transmission, while UDP sends data as discrete packets without such segmentation. Encryption is not inherently part of either TCP or UDP; it is applied at different layers of the OSI model and is a separate consideration for securing data transmission. Thus, port numbering is the key commonality that both protocols share, making it the correct answer.

Both TCP and UDP share the characteristic of port numbering, which is essential for facilitating communication between applications on different devices. Port numbers allow multiple applications to use network resources simultaneously. When a device sends data over the network, it includes a source port number and a destination port number in the transport layer header. This differentiation enables the underlying system to route incoming data to the correct application once it reaches its destination.

While TCP is connection-oriented, providing reliable, ordered, and error-checked delivery of data, UDP is connectionless, offering no such guarantees. Data segmentation is also a unique feature of TCP, which breaks down data into smaller packets before transmission, while UDP sends data as discrete packets without such segmentation. Encryption is not inherently part of either TCP or UDP; it is applied at different layers of the OSI model and is a separate consideration for securing data transmission. Thus, port numbering is the key commonality that both protocols share, making it the correct answer.