what does ping mean?

How does one define a good ping time and a bad ping time. How does it affect the internet speed and what does ping stand for?

I am going to assume that you didn't read wikipedia for what Ping is first. And define Ping as per my own basic understanding.

So, basically, Ping is a check by a PC to see if a website is responding.

If you Ping google.com for example, PC would send a small packet to Google.cm, and checks how much time does it take for the server to respond, or if it responds at all.

Code:

Pinging www.google.com [74.125.236.84] with 32 bytes of data: 

Reply from 74.125.236.84: bytes=32 time=18 ms TTL=250 
Reply from 74.125.236.84: bytes=32 time=21 ms TTL=250 
Reply from 74.125.236.84: bytes=32 time=20 ms TTL=250 
Reply from 74.125.236.84: bytes=32 time=33 ms TTL=250 

Ping statistics for 209.85.135.105: 
      Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss), 
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds: 
      Minimum = 18ms, Maximum = 33ms, Average = 23ms

Good Ping time and bad time are subjective. But generally Pings less than 100 ms are very good. Ping doesn't affect Internet speed. But it usually matters in online multiplayer FPS gaming, where you move fast, and want to shoot other player before they shoot you.

Thanx a lot Vyom.

R

Vyom said:
I am going to assume that you didn't read wikipedia for what Ping is first. And define Ping as per my own basic understanding.

So, basically, Ping is a check by a PC to see if a website is responding.

If you Ping google.com for example, PC would send a small packet to Google.cm, and checks how much time does it take for the server to respond, or if it responds at all.

Code:

Pinging www.google.com [74.125.236.84] with 32 bytes of data: Reply from 74.125.236.84: bytes=32 time=18 ms TTL=250 Reply from 74.125.236.84: bytes=32 time=21 ms TTL=250 Reply from 74.125.236.84: bytes=32 time=20 ms TTL=250 Reply from 74.125.236.84: bytes=32 time=33 ms TTL=250 Ping statistics for 209.85.135.105: Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss), Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds: Minimum = 18ms, Maximum = 33ms, Average = 23ms

Good Ping time and bad time are subjective. But generally Pings less than 100 ms are very good. Ping doesn't affect Internet speed. But it usually matters in online multiplayer FPS gaming, where you move fast, and want to shoot other player before they shoot you.

You can term the ping time as latency.

ping will also work even if a website is blocked

for e.g: if yahoo.com is blocked in cyberoam but ping will get the reply stats

ping is a utility used on TCP/IP network. In layman terms, it says - Hello Computer X / Hello Website URL / Hello IP Address. If the called computer / website is online then it will respond. This way we know that it is working all right.