What Is Hop Count?
Hop count is the number of steps from one place to another. It's like driving from point A to point B, but you have to drive through many different cities instead of going straight. The hop count tells you how often you must stop before getting there. The hop count is a measurement of the distance between two hosts. In networking, the hop count is the number of intermediate devices like routers through which a given piece of data passes through the destination instead of directly from a single cable. Each router hops in the data path, moving data from one source to another. The hop count is considered an essential measurement of the distance in a given network. In other words, it provides an approximate measure of the distance between two shared hosts. The hop count determines the number of devices between the source and destination, not the number of physical connections. Hop count is the number of devices between the source and destination and does not relate to the number of physical relations between the origin and destination. The maximum hop count for IPv4 is 19, and for IPv6, it is 40. A hop count of 19 equates to having 19 gateways between the source and destination hosts. The concept of hop count is fundamental when using public gateways to access the Internet. Also, using a private Internet Service Provider may result in a lower hop count than a general provider. Hop count is a metric that can be useful in determining the optimum network path, but it could be better. It doesn't consider other factors determining how reliable or fast a route might be. It means it might present you with a better path than there is.