Hop (networking)

In wired computer networking, including the Internet, a hop occurs when a packet is passed from one network segment to the next. Data packets pass through routers as they travel between source and destination. The hop count refers to the number of network devices through which data passes from source to destination (depending on routing protocol, this may include the source/destination, that is, the first hop is counted as hop 0 or hop 1).

This article is about traversal of a computer network. For traversal of a telecommunications network, see Hop (telecommunications).

Since store and forward and other latencies are incurred through each hop, a large number of hops between source and destination implies lower real-time performance.

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