Flow control

Flow control is a mechanism or code that compensates for differences in the flow of data into and out of a communication device (e.g., modem or network card). Flow control is necessary for data communications because the sending computer may be faster than the receiving computer; sending the data too fast would result in errors or lost data.

Data flow, Error control, Handshaking, Modem terms, Packet switching, Quality of service, Software flow control, Throttling