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Digital Literacy How the Internet Works The Internet TCP/IP

Posted by umang ketam
umang ketam
510 Points

now because packets often travel through a number of routers on their way to their destination ????

now because packets often travel through a number of routers on their way to their final destination , to make this process really fast ,each packet is designed to work independently???? what does this mean , how could he packets travel through a number of routers??

Jan Oberreiter
Jan Oberreiter
78,020 Points

when you send data ... it will never go from your router to the final destination without passing any other routers ... they are split into many packets and once they arrive at their final destination, they get put back together in the right order ... if you make a trace route, you will see, how the data is sent all over the globe, even if you are sending an email just to your neighbor ...

1 Answer

umang ketam
umang ketam
510 Points

Hi Jan , thanks for ur reply and I m completely satisfied too but if we send any data to anybody using mobile data in android smartphone, then also will the data travel through a number of routers or it will reach the final destination directly?????

Jan Oberreiter
Jan Oberreiter
78,020 Points

this doesn't make a difference ... your data from the cell phone will eventually (very soon) be transferred to the router of your ISP ... and then ... from there, again it will take the same way than any other data does ... the only difference is, that your data will "stream through the air" until it get's to the next radio mast, that will pick up your signal, e.g. the data you are sending and then it will just go the usual way ... if you search on google ... trace route ... you will find a helpful article on wikipedia, that explains in more into depth ... at least I find it helpful ... and there are also very good graphics, that make you understand the topic better ... just think of it as ... if the data wasn't split into packets and would be transferred directly to it's destination, it would only be possible in an intra-net ... that has a cable going from your machine directly to the recipient's device ...