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How Information Is Transferred on the Internet



 Describe how packets travel through the network.

The simplest explanation is that the sending computer creates a packet (a bundle of information) which includes an address to go to, the type of packet, and the actual data (Vahid & Lysecky, 2019, Section 3.1, Figure 3.1.1). “The Internet's computers know how to route the packet to the destination address. Depending on Internet traffic conditions, packets might follow different routes” (Vahid & Lysecky, 2019, Section 3.1, Figure 3.1.1). It is also taught that when a computer uses a domain name to contact a site (as opposed to the IP address), a packet's first stop is a DNS server or Domain Name System server. This is necessary for the domain name to be converted to an IP address so all routers can move the information around.

How the separate data destinations differ and the relationship between the roundtrip time and geographical location.

After comparing pings between locations, I noticed that a ping to google.com in America was similar to a ping to Japan. But the ping to Italy was faster than both. When considering ping, the average ping time does not vary dramatically according to the server's geographical location with which the sending computer is pinging. On the other hand, the traceroute gradually takes longer and longer after each new server’s contact is attempted. If I use Italy as the standard, Google says I am 4727 miles from Italy. With only eight new route destinations, after the average of every 590 miles (4727 / 8 ≈ 590), it takes about 2ms longer to get from the originating computer to the router. This is at 349.1 megabits per second download and 10.8 Mbps upload. Considering that Google’s longest-range server from my location is only 890 miles, that would mean that it should only take about 3ms total to run a traceroute. So geographical distance does not entirely rule out how fast information can be transferred between the home computer and the destination IP. The number of hops it took to get to Google and Google Japan was 17, but the number of hops to Italy was only 8. Therefore, I conclude that geographic location will only affect ping when there are few hops to get to it. To test this, I found the IP address for Google’s DNS server and ran a tracert command with the address—a 22ms trace. Much faster than the Google servers, but there were only 11 hops. Geographic location, in combination with hops or router stops, should be considered when evaluating a connection to an IP.

How the ping and traceroute commands can be used to troubleshoot internet connection problems.

If I find a slow ping, running a tracert command is valuable. The results of the tracer will tell me which IP (which hop or router) is slowing everything down. At that point, the server’s physical location could be determined, and troubleshooting of the server at the location could occur. If a computer loads web pages slowly, running a ping test to multiple sites can indicate whether the internet connection is slow. If every ping is slow, it is most likely the internet connection. But if only one ping is slow, it is most likely the IP destination.

Give at least two reasons why a ping request or traceroute command might time out or return with an error response.

I imagine many things could go wrong after evaluating the results of just three sites. Modulation could be disrupted somehow. Modulation is a term that describes how electrical signals are explicitly utilized for transferring data via wires or fiber optics (Vahid & Lysecky, 2019, Section 3.3). The ISP could be experiencing problems with its network. Specifically, wires along a route are damaged, or power is lost at a station. A router in the traceroute could be down or need to be restarted. Though the advice is given in reference to operating systems “In fact, restarting the OS (by restarting the computer, smartphone, etc.), perhaps every few weeks, may improve performance too” (Vahid & Lysecky, 2019, section 4.4, para. 5). I have found with a lot of electronics that are run by software; a good old fashioned cycle power is a maintenance technique. Sometimes a website has many computers trying to access it at once, and that congestion could lead to a timed-out connection. One last speculation could be an inefficient configuration of a wireless router and or modem. Many factors are involved with setting up the internet at home, and using the best settings sometimes takes some experimenting.


References


Vahid, F., & Lysecky, S. (2019). Computing technology for all. zyBooks.

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