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Networking & Telecommunications vocabulary · Protocols and Services

UDP

Meaning in networking & telecommunications, with examples

/ˌjuː diː ˈpiː/abbreviationCommon term

In networking & telecommunications, UDP means: Short for User Datagram Protocol: a simple, fast protocol that sends data without setting up a connection and without checking whether it arrived; used for voice, video, DNS and gaming.

In Turkish: Kullanıcı Veri Birimi Protokolü, UDP

How it is used

Spelled out letter by letter. Used when speed matters more than perfect delivery: a late voice packet is useless, so it is better to skip it than to resend it. Firewall rules must say whether a port is TCP or UDP.

Example sentences

  1. DNS normally uses UDP port 53.

  2. The firewall only allowed TCP, so the UDP traffic for the video calls was blocked.

Common collocations

  • UDP port
  • UDP traffic
  • UDP packet
  • UDP-based protocol
  • TCPShort for Transmission Control Protocol: a protocol that sets up a connection and makes sure data arrives complete and in the right order, resending anything that is lost.
  • portEither a physical socket on a device where a network cable is plugged in, or a number from 0 to 65535 that identifies a particular service on a host, such as 443 for HTTPS.
  • DNSShort for Domain Name System: the service that translates names such as example.com into the IP addresses that computers use to find each other.
  • protocolA set of agreed rules that defines how devices format, send, receive and check data, so that equipment from different vendors can talk to each other.
  • jitterVariation in the delay of packets arriving over a network; when packets arrive at uneven intervals, voice and video calls become choppy or robotic.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Protocols and Services

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