Using ping and traceroute to verify your connection

Ping and Traceroute are tools shipped with most operating systems (including Windows) which allow you to measure the quality of your connection to the internet. A ping measures how long a packet takes to get to a given host. A trace contains a list of each of the network devices (computers or routers) your "test packet" passes through on the way to its destination, and also how long each packet takes to arrive at that device.

In the following procedure, which assumes a Windows-based PC, we told our machine to ping www.yahoo.com. As www.yahoo.com is almost certainly online, a successful ping here tells us our internet connection is working.

1. click Start.. Run..
2. into the box, type COMMAND and click OK (2K/XP users: type CMD instead)
3. type ping www.yahoo.com
4. view the output

If you see packet loss=100%, your internet connection is not working.

In the following procedure, which assumes a Windows-based PC, we told our machine to trace a route to www.yahoo.com, so we see how fast our connection to our ISP is, and which route the packet takes on its way to www.yahoo.com:

1. click Start.. Run..
2. into the box, type COMMAND and click OK (2K/XP users: type CMD instead)
3. type tracert www.yahoo.com
4. view the output

Here's a sample output:

Tracing route to www.yahoo.akadns.net [64.58.76.224] over a maximum of 30 hops:

 1      1 ms     1 ms     1 ms  ThisAddressDoesNotExist [192.168.0.1]
 2     20 ms    17 ms    18 ms  81-86-240-1.dsl.pipex.com [81.86.240.1]
 3     17 ms    17 ms    27 ms  62-241-161-45.dsl.pipex.com [62.241.161.45]
 4     17 ms    16 ms    16 ms  POS4-0.GW1.LND9.ALTER.NET [146.188.63.105]
 5     17 ms    17 ms    18 ms  so-3-0-0.xr2.lnd9.alter.net [158.43.150.145]
 6     17 ms    16 ms    18 ms  so-1-1-0.TR1.LND9.Alter.Net [146.188.15.37]
 7     89 ms    88 ms    89 ms  so-6-0-0.IR1.NYC12.Alter.Net [146.188.15.50]
 8      *        *        *     Request timed out.
 9     90 ms    89 ms    90 ms  0.so-3-0-0.TL1.NYC9.ALTER.NET [152.63.9.246] 
 10    90 ms    89 ms    90 ms  0.so-5-0-0.XL1.NYC9.ALTER.NET [152.63.0.174]
 11    89 ms    89 ms    89 ms  POS6-0.BR1.NYC9.ALTER.NET [152.63.18.225]
 12    93 ms    94 ms    94 ms  acr2-so-5-3-0.NewYork.cw.net [206.24.193.245]
 13    90 ms     *      123 ms  agr3-loopback.NewYork.cw.net [206.24.194.103]
 14    90 ms    91 ms    89 ms  dcr1-so-6-2-0.NewYork.cw.net [206.24.207.57]
 15    98 ms    97 ms    98 ms  dcr1-loopback.Washington.cw.net [206.24.226.99]
 16    99 ms    98 ms    98 ms  bhr1-pos-0-0.Sterling1dc2.cw.net [206.24.238.34]
 17   100 ms   100 ms   100 ms  csr03-ve240.stng01.exodus.net [216.33.98.202]
 18    99 ms    99 ms    98 ms  216.35.210.122
 19   100 ms   101 ms   101 ms  www.yahoo.akadns.net [64.58.76.224] 

Trace complete.