hop
In reference to the
Web , a small jump on the route from one main computer to another. It can take you 15 hops or more to get from your
access provider to a
Web server on the other hemisphere.
An intermediate connection in a string of connections linking two network devices. On the Internet, for example, most data packets need to go through several routers before they reach their final destination. Each time the packet is forwarded to the next router, a hop occurs. The more hops, the longer it takes for data to go from source to destination. You can see how many hops it takes to get to another Internet host by using the PING or traceroute utilities.Some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) advertise how many hops away from Internet backbone they are. Theoretically, the fewer hops it takes to get your data onto the backbone, the faster your access will be.
A term used in routing. A path to a destination on a network is a series of hops, through routers, away from the origin.
A message or data packet travels a path among routers on a network through a series of hops from the sourse to the destination.
