A network administrator is evaluating an internal real-time voice streaming application. During periods of high network congestion, some voice packets are dropped, resulting in minor audio artifacts. A technician proposes modifying the application transport protocol from UDP to TCP to eliminate packet loss. Which of the following best describes the operational consequence of implementing this proposal?
- The application will experience increased latency and audio jitter because retransmissions and flow control delay real-time packet delivery.Answer
- BAudio delivery reliability will increase while simultaneously reducing protocol header overhead from 20 bytes to 8 bytes.
- CData delivery will shift from Layer 4 transport control to Layer 2 framing to prevent switch interface packet drops.
- DTraffic will automatically negotiate communication over port 23 to establish a connection-oriented encrypted session.
Answer
The application will experience increased latency and audio jitter because retransmissions and flow control delay real-time packet delivery.
Real-time media applications such as voice streaming prioritize low latency and consistent timing over guaranteed delivery. UDP is connectionless and lightweight (8-byte header), making it ideal for real-time traffic where dropping a frame is preferable to delaying the stream. Converting the application to TCP introduces connection establishment, acknowledgement overhead, sliding window flow control, and retransmissions of lost segments, which manifests as stream pause, audio jitter, and high latency.
Step-by-Step Solution
Key Concept
Connection-Oriented vs Connectionless Transport Protocols (TCP vs UDP)