Subject areaChannels and tools
A datagram is a packet of data that carries its destination address and travels through the network independently of the others.
The network keeps no record of the connection and simply routes each packet: whether all of them arrive, and in the right order, is checked by the computers at either end. The result is a simple, robust network, because the loss of a node (a switching point) does not stop the communication.
It is the central idea of the French network Cyclades, built in France in the early 1970s. The American designers took it up in TCP/IP, where the packet of the IP protocol has the same nature. The term is a reminder that, alongside ARPANET, Europe too played a fundamental role in the birth of the internet.
An example
The case that follows is constructed, because the term does not yet appear in the articles. A letter split into three postcards, each with the full address, may travel by different routes and arrive out of order: the recipient puts them back in sequence, and the post office never needs to know they belonged to one letter.
Enrico Giubertoni. Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0: you may quote, translate and adapt this entry with the author’s name and a link, stating any changes. For commercial use, write to info@enricogiubertoni.com
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