Standard TCP and UDP were not designed with telecom signaling requirements in mind, which led to the development of specialized protocols. SCTP, the Stream Control Transmission Protocol, was purpose-built for carrying signaling messages across telecom networks. It delivers the reliability of TCP with the message-boundary preservation of UDP, and adds multi-homing support that allows a single connection to span multiple IP addresses for redundancy. If one network path fails, SCTP seamlessly switches to the backup without dropping a single signaling message, making it the protocol of choice for mission-critical telecom interfaces.