Computer networking protocol overhead refers to the information that must be sent with the data being routed through the network to a destination. The information is stored at the beginning of the packet and is called the header. Depending on the exact network protocol being used, there can be a wide variety of information in the header, but the most important are the source and destination addresses. Even if a protocol between two applications uses little or no protocol overhead, the information will be bundled into an overhead network protocol that will be sent through routers to reach the correct destination.
Computer networking protocol overhead refers to the information that must be sent with the data being routed through the network to a destination.
Network data packets are one of the basic network communication concepts that make data transmission over the Internet and other networks possible. A packet contains the actual data being transmitted, along with any information that the receiving application or device requires to understand what the packet is. When routing between two points over the Internet, a packet can be wrapped inside another packet with a network protocol that helps route information through multiple nodes to reach the destination location. This wrapper packet will contain specific information that is not relevant to the data being sent and is considered protocol overhead.
A widely used network protocol is called Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). Packets that are sent using TCP/IP have a protocol overhead, somewhere in the range of 40 to 80 bytes per packet. TCP/IP also has a programmed behavior that actually creates even more overhead. When a TCP/IP packet is delivered to a destination within a network, it sends an acknowledgment to the sender of the delivered packet. This acknowledgment typically contains no data and is considered 100 percent protocol overhead.
One area where protocol overload can be of particular concern is when using Wi-Fi® or wireless Internet. Signals transmitted from a wireless router to a computer travel through the air and can be intercepted, which is why the wireless protocol has a very large header attached to each packet sent. Many packets can be transmitted to a computer every second and each packet contains the entire header. The size of the protocol overhead for a Wi-Fi® packet is derived from security, authorization, and packet ordering requirements. This makes the bandwidth available for actual data less with a Wi-Fi® protocol than with an Internet-connected machine.
