| Ever wonder why it takes so long to send e-mail, access a web
page, and listen to Real Audio streams over the net? One reason it may be taking so long
is the number of hops the packets are taking between your PC and the host you are
accessing. There is a built-in command in Windows 95 and NT that can trace the route for
you. Its called TRACERT. Just open a DOS box and type tracert host, where host is
the destination. Here's an example of going from my PC to the Empire's web site (a * means
packets were lost): C:\WINDOWS\tracert www.microsoft.com
Tracing route to www.microsoft.com [207.68.156.51] over a maximum
of 30 hops:
1 243 ms 234 ms 233 ms tl.sei.cmu.edu [128.237.10.200]
2 238 ms 240 ms 238 ms RTRBONE.NET.CMU.EDU [128.2.2.3]
3 240 ms 238 ms 244 ms RTRBONE.NET.CMU.EDU [128.2.2.3]
4 444 ms 249 ms 239 ms nss5.psc.edu [192.88.114.254]
5 255 ms 423 ms 440 ms border4-hssi1-0.WillowSprings.mci.net
[204.70.18.5]
6 348 ms 263 ms 372 ms core1-fddi-1.WillowSprings.mci.net
[204.70.104.3]
7 326 ms 322 ms 322 ms microsoft.Seattle.mci.net [166.48.209.250]
8 318 ms 324 ms 314 ms microsoft.Seattle.mci.net [166.48.209.250]
9 318 ms 319 ms * 207.68.145.54
10 336 ms * 335 ms www.microsoft.com [207.68.156.51]
Trace complete.
As you can see, quite a long route: From my machine (on a PPP
dialup) to the CMU backbone (it skipped the SEI gateway in this case for some reason), to
the Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center to the MCI carrier from Willow Springs to Seattle, to
Microsoft. Things get rather more interesting if you try somewhere exotic, such as
cs.anu.edu.au (the Australian National University in Canberra). |
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