What is a Maximum Transmission Unit?
The maximum transmission unit, or MTU, is the single largest frame or packet of data that can be transmitted across a network. The exact nature of the maximum transmission unit will be determined by the configuration of the network and what type of protocols is in place for the transmission of data. Generally, a maximum transmission unit is composed of eight-bit bytes of information. The size of the frame or packet is very important to the process of transmitting data through any network. For this reason, there are usually specific rules that govern the size of data packets that can be transmitted without creating some sort of bottleneck within the network. In the case of the Internet, a set of standards referred to as the Transmission Control Protocol is utilized to define what constitutes a functional size of data packet. When transmitting information, the size of the maximum transmission unit is very important. In the event that the packet or frame is too large, the end result could
