Abbreviation of Microcom Networking Protocol, a communications protocol developed by Microcom, Inc., that is used by many high-speed modems. MNP supports several different classes of communication, each higher class providing additional features. Modems can support one or more classes. Class 4 provides error detection and automatically varies the transmission speed based on the quality of the line. Class 5 provides data compression. Class 6 attempts to detect the highest transmission speed of the modem at the other end of the connect and transmit at that speed.
The most common levels of MNP support are Class 4 and Class 5, frequently called MNP-4 and MNP-5. Using the data compression techniques provided by MNP-5, devices can double normal transmission speeds.
Because MNP is usually built into the modem hardware, it affects all data transmission. In contrast, software protocols, such as Xmodem and Kermit, affect only file transfer operations.
