Network Control Program: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

The Network Control Program (sometimes the acronym NCP is mistakenly expanded to Network Control Protocol, but this term is not found in the contemporary documentation) is the original protocol suite of the ARPANET.

In NCP, the Physical layer, the Data link layer, and the Network layer are all specified by the Host/Imp Protocol. The Transport layer is the Host-to-Host Protocol, together with the Initial Connection Protocol. Layers above that are all joined in with the application (e.g. FTP, SMTP, etc).

Further reading

• ARPANET Protocol Handbook (Network Information Center, Menlo Park, 1978)