Difference Between TCP Segment and TCP Packet

A TCP segment refers to a protocol data unit that is composed of a piece of application data originating from the upper application layer and a TCP header. Lammle (2012) depicts that a segment and a unit of network layer data constitutes the transport layer data referred to as datagram. However, in cases where UDP is implemented as the transport layer protocol, the resulting segment is referred to as the UDP datagram. Lammle (2012) defines a packet as basic unit of information available in the transmission of networks. A considerate percentage of networks utilize TCP/IP as the protocol governing the communication rules between devices. One of the rules of the TCP/IP includes having information split into packets that includes the segment of data to the transmitted and the address of the location of the data in question. As is, TCP segment and packet varies on a great scale. It is evident that a TCP segment arises from a split of a data stream to various portions that are further provided with a header. On the other hand, the TCP packet is regarded as segment combined with header of the Network Layer. The data and a transport header that constitutes the transport layer are referred to as the segment. According to Lammle (2012), a larger network subsequent is referred to as a segment while a packet refers to a single unit of routable data. The subdivision of information to smaller segments makes it easier for data to be delivered to its right destination.