SCTP: A Proposed Standard for Robust Internet Data Transport

M ost Internet protocol-based networksemploy either the transmission controlprotocol (TCP) or the user datagramprotocol (UDP) for data transfer.However, these two general-purpose protocols provide disjointed services and do not ide-ally satisfy all application needs. The general-purpose stream control transmission protocol is designed to expand the scope beyond TCP and UDP. SCTP evolved from a telephony sig-naling protocol for IP networks.1 Today it is a pro-posed Internet Engineering Task Force standard (RFC 2960).2 Like TCP, SCTP provides a reliable, full-duplex connection and mechanisms to control network congestion. Unlike both TCP and UDP, however, SCTP offers new delivery options that are particularly desirable for telephony signaling and multimedia applications. Table 1 compares SCTP’s services and feature