Layer 1: Physical Layer

The physical layer is responsible for the transmission and reception of unstructured raw data between a device and
a physical transmission medium. It converts the digital bits into electrical, radio, or optical signals. Layer
specifications define characteristics such as voltage levels, the timing of voltage changes, physical data rates,
maximum transmission distances, and physical connectors. This includes the layout of pins, voltages, line
impedance, cable specifications, signal timing and frequency for wireless devices. Bit rate control is done at the
physical layer and may define transmission mode as simplex, half duplex, and full duplex. The components of a
physical layer can be described in terms of a network topology. Bluetooth, Ethernet, and USB all have
specifications for a physical layer.

Layer 2: Data Link Layer

The data link layer provides node-to-node data transfer—a link between two directly connected nodes. It detects
and possibly corrects errors that may occur in the physical layer. It defines the protocol to establish and terminate
a connection between two physically connected devices. It also defines the protocol for flow control between
them.

IEEE 802 divides the data link layer into two sublayers:[5]

Medium access control (MAC) layer – responsible for controlling how devices in a network gain access to a medium
and permission to transmit data.

Logical link control (LLC) layer – responsible for identifying and encapsulating network layer protocols, and controls
error checking and frame synchronization.

The MAC and LLC layers of IEEE 802 networks such as 802.3 Ethernet, 802.11 Wi-Fi, and 802.15.4 ZigBee operate at
the data link layer.

The Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) is a data link layer protocol that can operate over several different physical
layers, such as synchronous and asynchronous serial lines.

The ITU-T G.hn standard, which provides high-speed local area networking over existing wires (power lines, phone
lines and coaxial cables), includes a complete data link layer that provides both error correction and flow control
by means of a selective-repeat sliding-window protocol.

Layer 3: Network Layer

The network layer provides the functional and procedural means of transferring variable length data sequences
(called packets) from one node to another connected in "different networks". A network is a medium to which
many nodes can be connected, on which every node has an address and which permits nodes connected to it to
transfer messages to other nodes connected to it by merely providing the content of a message and the address of
the destination node and letting the network find the way to deliver the message to the destination node, possibly
routing it through intermediate nodes. If the message is too large to be transmitted from one node to another on
the data link layer between those nodes, the network may implement message delivery by splitting the message
into several fragments at one node, sending the fragments independently, and reassembling the fragments at
another node. It may, but does not need to, report delivery errors.

Message delivery at the network layer is not necessarily guaranteed to be reliable; a network layer protocol may
provide reliable message delivery, but it need not do so.
A number of layer-management protocols, a function defined in the management annex, ISO 7498/4, belong to the
network layer. These include routing protocols, multicast group management, network-layer information and
error, and network-layer address assignment. It is the function of the payload that makes these belong to the
network layer, not the protocol that carries them.[6]

Layer 4: Transport Layer

The transport layer provides the functional and procedural means of transferring variable-length data sequences
from a source to a destination host, while maintaining the quality of service functions.

The transport layer controls the reliability of a given link through flow control, segmentation/desegmentation, and
error control. Some protocols are state- and connection-oriented. This means that the transport layer can keep
track of the segments and re-transmit those that fail delivery. The transport layer also provides the
acknowledgement of the successful data transmission and sends the next data if no errors occurred. The transport
layer creates segments out of the message received from the application layer. Segmentation is the process of
dividing a long message into smaller messages.

OSI defines five classes of connection-mode transport protocols ranging from class 0 (which is also known as TP0
and provides the fewest features) to class 4 (TP4, designed for less reliable networks, similar to the Internet). Class
0 contains no error recovery, and was designed for use on network layers that provide error-free connections.
Class 4 is closest to TCP, although TCP contains functions, such as the graceful close, which OSI assigns to the
session layer. Also, all OSI TP connection-mode protocol classes provide expedited data and preservation of record
boundaries. Detailed characteristics of TP0-4 classes are shown in the following table:[7]

An easy way to visualize the transport layer is to compare it with a post office, which deals with the dispatch and
classification of mail and parcels sent. A post office inspects only the outer envelope of mail to determine its
delivery. Higher layers may have the equivalent of double envelopes, such as cryptographic presentation services
that can be read by the addressee only. Roughly speaking, tunneling protocols operate at the transport layer, such
as carrying non-IP protocols such as IBM's SNA or Novell's IPX over an IP network, or end-to-end encryption with
IPsec. While Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) might seem to be a network-layer protocol, if the encapsulation
of the payload takes place only at the endpoint, GRE becomes closer to a transport protocol that uses IP headers
but contains complete Layer 2 frames or Layer 3 packets to deliver to the endpoint. L2TP carries PPP frames inside
transport segments.

Although not developed under the OSI Reference Model and not strictly conforming to the OSI definition of the
transport layer, the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) of the Internet
Protocol Suite are commonly categorized as layer-4 protocols within OSI.

Layer 5: Session Layer

The session layer controls the dialogues (connections) between computers. It establishes, manages and terminates
the connections between the local and remote application. It provides for full-duplex, half-duplex, or simplex
operation, and establishes checkpointing, adjournment, termination, and restart procedures. The OSI model made
this layer responsible for graceful close of sessions, which is a property of the Transmission Control Protocol, and
also for session checkpointing and recovery, which is not usually used in the Internet Protocol Suite. The session
layer is commonly implemented explicitly in application environments that use remote procedure calls.

Layer 6: Presentation Layer

The presentation layer establishes context between application-layer entities, in which the application-layer
entities may use different syntax and semantics if the presentation service provides a mapping between them. If a
mapping is available, presentation protocol data units are encapsulated into session protocol data units and
passed down the protocol stack.
This layer provides independence from data representation by translating between application and network
formats. The presentation layer transforms data into the form that the application accepts. This layer formats data
to be sent across a network. It is sometimes called the syntax layer.[8] The presentation layer can include
compression functions.[9] The Presentation Layer negotiates the Transfer Syntax.The original presentation
structure used the Basic Encoding Rules of Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1), with capabilities such as
converting an EBCDIC-coded text file to an ASCII-coded file, or serialization of objects and other data structures
from and to XML. ASN.1 effectively makes an application protocol invariant with respect to syntax.

Layer 7: Application Layer

The application layer is the OSI layer closest to the end user, which means both the OSI application layer and the
user interact directly with the software application. This layer interacts with software applications that implement
a communicating component. Such application programs fall outside the scope of the OSI model. Application-layer
functions typically include identifying communication partners, determining resource availability, and
synchronizing communication. When identifying communication partners, the application layer determines the
identity and availability of communication partners for an application with data to transmit. The most important
distinction in the application layer is the distinction between the application-entity and the application. For
example, a reservation website might have two application-entities: one using HTTP to communicate with its users,
and one for a remote database protocol to record reservations. Neither of these protocols have anything to do
with reservations. That logic is in the application itself. The application layer per se has no means to determine the
availability of resources in the network.