What ping measures
Ping sends a small ICMP echo request to a host and times how long the echo reply takes to come back. That round trip, in milliseconds, is the latency between two points on the internet.
This tool sends 4, 8 or 16 requests, one after another. Each row in the result is one request: its sequence number, the round-trip time, and the TTL left on the reply. Over IPv6 the same exchange uses ICMPv6.
TTL is a hop counter. Most systems send replies with a starting value of 64, 128 or 255, and every router on the way back subtracts one. A TTL of 55 usually means the reply started at 64 and crossed nine routers.
Measured from our probe, not from your device
The packets leave from our probe server, not from your phone or computer. The result tells you whether a host is reachable from the internet and how far it is from the probe in network terms. It does not measure your own connection.
To test your own line, run ping on your own device. Open Command Prompt on Windows, or Terminal on macOS and Linux, and type ping example.com. Windows sends four requests and stops. macOS and Linux keep going until you press Ctrl+C.
What counts as good latency
| Rating | Browsing and streaming | Voice and video calls | Fast online games |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good | Under 100 ms | Under 150 ms | Under 50 ms |
| Workable | 100 to 200 ms | 150 to 300 ms | 50 to 100 ms |
| Poor | Over 200 ms | Over 300 ms | Over 100 ms |
These are round-trip times and general guidance, not hard limits. Distance sets a floor that no network can beat: light in fibre needs about 1 ms of round trip for every 100 km between two points, so a host on another continent cannot answer in 10 ms.
Packet loss and jitter
- Packet loss is the share of requests that never got a reply. One lost packet in a short run means little, so repeat with 16 packets before drawing a conclusion. Steady loss above 1 or 2 percent makes calls break up and games stutter, and slows downloads because lost data has to be sent again.
- Jitter is how much the reply times vary. We report it as the standard deviation of the round-trip times. A steady 40 ms is better for a call than a connection that swings between 15 and 90 ms, even if the average looks similar.
When a host is up but does not answer
No reply does not prove a host is down. Ping only works when the host, and every firewall in front of it, agrees to answer ICMP echo. Many do not.
- A firewall drops it. Windows blocks incoming echo requests by default, and cloud servers often need a rule that allows ICMP before they answer.
- The router ignores it. Many home routers do not answer ping from the internet unless you switch that on in their settings.
- Replies are rate limited. Busy routers and servers answer only so many pings per second, which shows up as scattered timeouts rather than real loss.
If a website loads but does not answer ping, that is the owner's choice and nothing is wrong. Test the service itself with the port checker, using port 443 for a website.
Only ping hosts you own or have a reason to test. Each run sends at most 16 packets.