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Traveling Through a Network

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Post #4 – Traveling Through a Network

Introduction & Feedback Integration

In Week Three I used ping and tracert to observe how packets travel to different destinations. Based on feedback from Dr. Kenneth Barr and my peers, I’ve expanded this analysis with more troubleshooting insights, added explanations for timeouts, and compared multiple geographic targets.

1. How Packets Traverse the Network

When I ran tracert www.amazon.co.jp, each line shows a “hop” between routers on the way to Amazon’s Japanese servers. Early hops stay on my local ISP (Spectrum), then the path hands off to backbone routers before finally reaching the Amazon edge node.

Traceroute to Amazon Japan
Figure 1: tracert www.amazon.co.jp completed in 14 hops, average transit ~20 ms per hop.

2. Comparing Paths to Different Regions

The path to Australia’s ABC site (tracert www.abc.net.au) also begins on my local network but then travels through multiple U.S. backbone hops before crossing the Pacific via Akamai’s CDN, adding latency.

Traceroute to ABC Australia
Figure 2: tracert www.abc.net.au completed in 15 hops, reflecting a longer trans-Pacific route.

3. Round-Trip Time & Geography

Ping results:

Ping results for amazon.co.jp
Figure 3: ping www.amazon.co.jp – Average RTT ≈ 20 ms (IPv6 via Akamai edge in Japan).
Ping results for abc.net.au
Figure 4: ping www.abc.net.au – Average RTT ≈ 53 ms (IPv4 via Akamai edge in Australia).

The ABC server’s RTT is higher than Amazon’s because packets cross a greater physical distance (U.S.→Australia). Local servers (e.g., Google in North America) typically show RTTs around 30–40 ms.

4. Using Ping & Traceroute for Troubleshooting

Both tools are invaluable for diagnosing connectivity issues:

  • Ping checks basic reachability and measures packet loss or high latency.
  • Traceroute reveals each hop along the path, helping isolate where delays or drops occur.

5. Common Causes of Timeouts or Errors

  1. ICMP Filtering: Firewalls or routers may block ICMP traffic, causing “Request timed out” on certain hops.
  2. Network Congestion or Device Overload: Heavy traffic or an overworked router can drop or delay traceroute packets.
  3. Asymmetric Routing: Packets take one path out and a different, possibly filtered, return path.

Conclusion

By comparing routes to Japan and Australia, we see that greater physical distance and more backbone handoffs increase round-trip times. ping and tracert together help pinpoint where latency arises or where a connection fails essential skills for any IT troubleshooting toolkit.

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