NTP is a three-letter initialism which may stand for:

Computing [link]

Network Time Protocol, a means of synchronizing clocks over a computer network

Politics [link]

Nation Transformation Party, a political party in Papua New Guinea
National Toxicology Program, part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services
Ninh Thuan Province, a province in Vietnam
Northern Territory Police, the police force in the Northern Territory of Australia

Science [link]

Chemistry [link]

Normal temperature and pressure, in chemistry
Nucleoside triphosphate, an organic compound and building block of nucleic acids

Other uses [link]

Natural Terminal Port, an Australian term referring to pricing of commodities roughly comparable to Ex Works at the nearest port or railway station
New Teacher Project, a US non-profit organization
NTP, Inc., an American patent holding firm that threatened to shut down the Blackberry system for patent infringement
Nicole Teresa Pauley, an American businesswoman

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Network Time Protocol

Network Time Protocol (NTP) is a networking protocol for clock synchronization between computer systems over packet-switched, variable-latency data networks. In operation since before 1985, NTP is one of the oldest Internet protocols in current use. NTP was originally designed by David L. Mills of the University of Delaware, who still oversees its development.

NTP is intended to synchronize all participating computers to within a few milliseconds of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). It uses a modified version of Marzullo's algorithm to select accurate time servers and is designed to mitigate the effects of variable network latency. NTP can usually maintain time to within tens of milliseconds over the public Internet, and can achieve better than one millisecond accuracy in local area networks under ideal conditions. Asymmetric routes and network congestion can cause errors of 100 ms or more.

The protocol is usually described in terms of a client-server model, but can as easily be used in peer-to-peer relationships where both peers consider the other to be a potential time source. Implementations send and receive timestamps using the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) on port number 123. They can also use broadcasting or multicasting, where clients passively listen to time updates after an initial round-trip calibrating exchange. NTP supplies a warning of any impending leap second adjustment, but no information about local time zones or daylight saving time is transmitted.