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Piggybacking in Data transmission

Definition:
Temporarily delaying transmission of outgoing acknowledgement so that they can be
hooked onto the next outgoing data frame
Piggybacking is a bi-directional data transmission technique in
the Network Layer (OSI Model). It makes the most of the sent data frames from receiver
to emitter, adding the confirmation that the data frame sent by the sender was received
successfully (ACK acknowledge). This practically means, that instead of sending an
acknowledgement in an individual frame it is piggy backed on the data frame.

Working Principle
The data used in piggybacking is a bit different from the data used in
Sliding Window Protocol in the OSI model. In the data frame itself, we incorporate one
additional field for acknowledgment (called ACK).
Piggybacking of Acknowledgments:
We have to make a new packet for the ACK of the last received packet
which is not need not to be sent as a new packet, but gets a free ride on the next
outgoing data frame (using the ACK field in the frame header). The technique is
temporarily delaying outgoing ACKs so that they can be hooked on the next outgoing
data. But ACK can't be delayed for a long time if receiver (of the packet to be
acknowledged) does not have any data to send. In two way communication, whenever a

data frame is received, the received waits and does not send the control frame
(acknowledgement) back to the sender immediately. The receiver waits until its network
layer passes in the next data packet. The delayed acknowledgement is then attached to
this outgoing data frame. This technique of temporarily delaying the acknowledgement
so that it can be hooked with next outgoing data frame is known as piggybacking.
Whenever party A wants to send data to party B, it will send the data along with this
ACK field. Considering the sliding window here of size 8 bits, if A has received frames
up to 5 correctly (from B), and wants to send frames starting from frame 6, it will send
ACK6 with the data.
Rules:
Three rules govern the piggybacking data transfer

If station A wants to send both data and an acknowledgment, it keeps both fields
there.

If station A wants to send just the acknowledgment, then a separate ACK frame is
sent.

If station A wants to send just the data, then the last acknowledgment field is sent
along with the data. Station B simply ignores this duplicate ACK frame upon
receiving.

Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages:

We can use the available channel bandwidth in a better way.

Efficiency of data communication is improved by piggybacking

Disadvantages:

Additional complexity.
If the data link layer waits too long before transmitting the acknowledgement,
then retransmission of frame would take place.