A transport protocol is a network-layer specification that governs end-to-end delivery of data between processes, handling concerns such as multiplexing, reliability, ordering, and flow and congestion control. Examples including TCP, UDP, and QUIC sit above the network layer and provide the communication substrate over which higher-level application and agent protocols operate.
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- TCP offers reliable, ordered byte streams; UDP offers lightweight connectionless datagrams; and QUIC layers multiplexed, encrypted streams over UDP to reduce latency. The choice of transport shapes the latency, reliability, and security characteristics available to the protocols and applications built on top of it.