Which network protocol is responsible for reliable, ordered delivery of data?

Answer: TCP (Transmission Control Protocol)

Explanation: TCP is a connection-oriented transport-layer protocol that ensures reliable, ordered delivery of a byte stream between hosts.

• Connection establishment: uses a three-way handshake to create a reliable session.

• Ordering and reliability: sequence numbers and acknowledgments detect loss and ensure segments are delivered in order; lost segments are retransmitted.

• Flow control: sliding window prevents the sender from overwhelming the receiver.

• Congestion control: adjusts sending rate in response to network congestion to maintain reliability.

Contrast with other protocols: UDP is connectionless and does not guarantee order or delivery; IP handles addressing and routing at the network layer; ARP resolves IP addresses to MAC addresses on a local network.