Internet Protocol
A protocol used primarily for data. IP is used by an originator and destinations for communicating on a packet-switched network.
What's unique about an IP protocol network is that there is no path established for the communication - instead, packets are sent across the network by an originator to locations which have never been communicated with before. There is no "path" that must be established before the packets of data are sent. The Internet Protocol makes few guarantees about the delivery of the packet. The packet may not arrive, may arrive incomplete, out of sequence, or it may be redundant. There are other protocols on top of IP which provide greater reliability for applications that demand it.
IP is the common protocol of today's public Internet. The current version of the protocol in use today is IPv4. The next generation IP protocol is IPv6, which is needed because the Internet is slowly running out of IPv4 addresses.
