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| Ping and Traceroute for Google |
Ping and traceroute
For this experiment, I chose to ping google.com, bbc.co.uk and abc.net.au. The first time I pinged Google, I thought I had broken my computer because my computer wouldn’t stop pinging Google. I ended up terminating the whole program and looking for more information on YouTube. After a quick search, I found I was supposed to end the command by pressing CTRL C (eHowTech, 2012). On my second attempt, I got the results I was looking for. My computer sent six packets with low latency of around 20 to 29 ms. However, one packet was lost along the way. Next, I sent a ping to the BBC in the UK. The information traveled quickly, about 10 to 20 ms and no packets were lost. Finally, I pinged ABC in Australia. My packets took a bit longer to reach their destination, averaging around 40 ms, but no packets were lost. I was able to connect with each website with little hassle.
Next, I use traceroute for the same websites. Google showed the same low latency and did not travel through that many routers. My request timed out on the eighth hop, which is probably where the package was lost. When I ran traceroute to BBC, I was surprised that the information passed through about as many routers as Google, showing the same low latency. However, one request may have timed out on the eighth hop. The traceroute ended when the request timed out completely.
Australia showed the most significant variation, with double the number of hops passing through several routers. Furthermore, the latency slowed over time to 71.9 ms. Lastly, I couldn’t get a return IP address from the foreign websites. The request just timed out, most likely the work of a firewall. Running traceroute is intimidating because I can see the city that I live in, Aurora, Colorado, and my ISP, Comcast. It makes me wonder how much people can learn about me if they have my IP address and how easy it is to get that information.
But Australia is on the other side of the globe. There are cables in the ocean that lead to Australia, but the information has to go through several routers, and it takes a long time to get there. This is probably because the Pacific Ocean is so big, and there aren’t many places to put routers that repeat the signal strength (Google image provided). Since the ocean is so vast, the information has to travel a very long distance and make many stops, which is causing latency attenuation. Signals get weaker over long distances (TestOut, 2024). Information travels faster when it doesn’t have as many stopping points.
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| The Pacific Ocean (Captured from Google Earth) |
Ping and trace root commands can be used to troubleshoot connectivity issues. For instance, if your website is not acting properly after clearing your cache and restarting your computer, you can ping the website through the command prompt and see if your computer can connect there. Pinging a website tells users if a site is available and how fast it takes to connect (Guide to ping and traceroute commands, 2025). When users ping a website, their computer sends several packets to the site and reports how many packages were returned (Guide to ping and traceroute commands, 2025). If a packet is lost, users can run a traceroute command to see precisely where the package was lost. In Google's case, the server might be experiencing high traffic (RapidScale, 2020). The traceroute command determines where the packet was lost (Guide to ping and traceroute commands, 2025). Using ping in traceroute determines if the connection issues with your computer or the network server.
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| Ping and Traceroutes for BBC and ABC |
Guide to ping and traceroute commands. (2025). University of Arizona Global Campus: https://uagc.instructure.com/courses/145690/discussion_topics/3995009?module_item_id=7415067
RapidScale. (2020). What causes packet loss and how to eliminate it in your network. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg656nGbXe4
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