What is ping

Now almost every computer is connected tothe Internet. Millions of users go online every day: someone for work, and someone for fun. It would seem: the most important features of the functioning of the Network are known to all. However, the question “what is ping”, often asked on the forums, makes it possible to doubt the sufficiency of knowledge.

If the average ownerIf a computer connected to the Internet is asked to choose the best provider from the list, then 90% will be the one who provides the highest speed. In part, this answer is correct, but in addition to speed, there are a number of characteristics that affect the usability of the Network. One of them is ping. Without understanding what ping is, much of the work of the web is impossible to explain. Let's give an example from life: there are two computers connected to different providers (one to the wired one, the other by radio). Declared speed is valid. It would seem: the time spent on downloading the same file should be equal. Even with a small margin of error. In practice, this equality is not respected. Who knows what ping is, easily explain what is happening.

Experience shows that it is much easier to convey something to a reader who is not familiar with the topic if you use analogies. Therefore, we will do so, telling what ping is.

Imagine that there are two athlete runner.Their theoretical capabilities are equal: in the test runs, both run a hundred-meter run in 1 minute. Suppose that they have the task of running from one end of the city to the other. Obviously, the shortest path is a straight line, so they immediately run along a straight road. But after the first intersection, everything changes: one always gets the green light of a traffic light, cars do not block the road, and if there is an obstacle, it is easily overcome, and the further way is paved on a clean asphalt road. Alas, the second athlete has no luck: either the laces will be untied at the most inopportune moment, then the sand is accidentally scattered, and the road is often blocked, and you have to go to the goal by lanes.

Athletes are bits of information transmittedcomputer to the Internet. Crossroads are servers, nodes that form a single network from communication lines. Roads are highways (twisted pair, fiber, radio frequency). Sand, laces, traffic lights and other obstacles symbolize the influence of hardware and software elements of the Network on the speed of passage of information bits.

So ping is the latency to whichtransmitted signal. Than they are less - the faster the work with data on the web. Moreover, the connection speed, as can be seen from the example, is the same. The conclusion is simple - the quality of the channel on the Internet is determined by both speed and ping.

For fans of online battles ping plays moreimportant role than other characteristics. After all, you need time to react to the action on the screen, but this is impossible if everyone receives a server response, for example, in 1 second, and an unlucky user - in 5 seconds.

How to learn ping?This can be done directly from the Windows environment. There is a ping command for this. Usually, ping the site is checked this way. This allows not only to select the site (server) with the lowest ping, but also to check its availability (to determine if the site is working).

For example, to check the ping for this site,press Win + R, type ping fb.ru (Enter). The delay is displayed in milliseconds. By the way, in order not to catch the moment when to press the Pause button, you can create a bat file of such content:

ping fb.ru

pause

To reduce ping you need:change the provider, modem, data plan, install the CFosSpeed ​​program and enable optimization by ping (debatable, but the function is declared). Also, the firewall used can have an effect on the delay.