|  | 6.1 | LAN Standards
| 6.1.4 | Logical Link Control (LLC)

IEEE created the logical link sublayer to allow part of the data link layer to function independently from existing technologies. This layer provides versatility in services to network layer protocols that are above it, while communicating effectively with the variety of technologies below it. The LLC, as a sublayer, participates in the encapsulation process. The LLC PDU is sometimes also called an LLC packet, but this is not a widely used term.

LLC takes the network protocol data, an IP packet, and adds more control information to help deliver the IP packet to its destination. It adds two addressing components of the 802.2 specification - the Destination Service Access Point (DSAP) and the Source Service Access Point (SSAP). This repackaged IP packet then travels to the MAC sublayer for handling by the required specific technology for further encapsulation and data. An example of this specific technology might be one of the varieties of Ethernet, Token Ring, or FDDI.

The LLC sublayer of the data link layer manages communications between devices over a single link on a network. LLC is defined in the IEEE 802.2 specification and supports both connectionless and connection-oriented services, used by higher-layer protocols. IEEE 802.2 defines a number of fields in the data link layer frames that enable multiple higher-layer protocols to share a single physical data link.