The network layer provides the means of transferring variable-length
network packets from a source to a destination
host via one or more networks. Within the service layering semantics of the OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) network architecture, the network layer responds to service requests from the
transport layer and issues service requests to the data link layer. Functions of the network layer include: ;
Connectionless communication : For example,
Internet Protocol is connectionless, in that a data packet can travel from a sender to a recipient without the recipient having to send an acknowledgement. Connection-oriented protocols exist at other, higher layers of the OSI model. ; Host addressing :Every host in the network must have a unique address that determines where it is. This address is normally assigned from a hierarchical system. For example, you can be: : :"Fred Murphy" to people in your house, :"Fred Murphy, 1 Main Street" to Dubliners, :"Fred Murphy, 1 Main Street, Dublin" to people in Ireland, :"Fred Murphy, 1 Main Street, Dublin, Ireland" to people anywhere in the world. : :On the Internet, addresses are known as
IP addresses (Internet Protocol). : ; Message forwarding :Since many networks are partitioned into subnetworks and connect to other networks for wide-area communications, networks use specialized hosts, called gateways or
routers, to forward packets between networks. ==Relation to TCP/IP model==