The following diagram illustrates the place of the internet protocol in the protocol hierarchy:
+------+ +-----+ +-----+ +-----+ |Telnet| | FTP | | TFTP| ... | ... | +------+ +-----+ +-----+ +-----+ | | | | +-----+ +-----+ +-----+ | TCP | | UDP | ... | ... | +-----+ +-----+ +-----+ | | | +--------------------------+----+ | Internet Protocol & ICMP | +--------------------------+----+ | +---------------------------+ | Local Network Protocol | +---------------------------+ Protocol Relationships Figure 1.
Internet protocol interfaces on one side to the higher level host-to-host protocols and on the other side to the local network protocol. In this context a "local network" may be a small network in a building or a large network such as the ARPANET.