Ping AND TraceRoute Activity

 

Ping to Google.com

I ran a ping command to Google.com and got responses from the server each time. All 4 packets were sent and received successfully with no loss. The response times were very consistent, ranging from 11 ms to 14 ms, with an average of 13 ms.

Ping to www.amazon.de (Germany)

Next, I pinged Amazon's German website. Again, all 4 packets went through with 0% packet loss. The response times varied slightly, ranging from 11 ms to 14 ms, with an average of 12 ms. This suggests a stable connection.

Ping to www.costco.co.kr (South Korea)

Lastly, I pinged Costco’s Korean website. All 4 packets were successfully received as well. Response times ranged from 10 ms to 15 ms, and the average was 12 ms. Despite the long physical distance, latency stayed low.

Part 2: Traceroute Activity

Traceroute to Google.com

The traceroute to Google.com showed 8 hops in total. Each hop had a low response time, between 8 ms and 15 ms. There were no errors or timeouts, and the trace completed smoothly, showing a clean path to the destination.

Traceroute to www.amazon.de (Germany)

Tracing the route to Amazon’s German site showed 7 hops. Most hops responded within 7–14 ms, but there was one hop (hop 5) that timed out. However, the route was still completed without issues, so it didn’t affect the final delivery of data.

Traceroute to  www.costco.co.kr (South Korea)

The route to Costco in Korea took 10 hops. A few of the middle hops (7 through 9) timed out, which can be common with some routers that don’t respond to traceroute requests. Still, the destination was reached with no problem, and the times stayed between 7 ms and 22 ms.

Part 3: Reflection – Traveling Through a Network

Using the ping and traceroute tools helped me understand how data moves across the internet. Every time I pinged a website, I was checking how fast and reliably I could send a small data packet and get a reply. Traceroute showed me the path those packets take to get to the destination, hop by hop, through different routers along the way.

One interesting thing I noticed was how similar the ping times were, even though the websites were in completely different parts of the world, Germany, South Korea, and probably a local Google server. The average ping times were all very close: 12–13 ms. That shows how well-connected and optimized global networks have become. These companies likely use CDNs (Content Delivery Networks), which serve content from a nearby location rather than all the way from the country the website belongs to.

When looking at traceroutes, I saw that each path had a different number of hops: Google had 8, Amazon had 7, and Costco had 10. Even though the Costco route had a few timeouts, the trace still finished successfully. That’s because some routers are set up to ignore these types of requests for security or performance reasons, even though they still pass traffic.

These tools are great for troubleshooting. If a site isn’t loading, a ping can tell you if the server is reachable, and traceroute can help you find where the connection is slowing down or getting blocked.

A ping or traceroute might fail for a couple of reasons. One is that a firewall or security setting is blocking ICMP packets, which these commands use. Another common reason is network congestion or issues at a specific hop that prevent it from responding.

Overall, this activity gave me a clearer picture of how internet traffic flows and how to use basic tools to troubleshoot problems when something goes wrong.