Help Understanding TRACEROUTE output

Question

Hello, I have a question regarding traceroute and hope you can help (I really could not find the answer online). Supposse a typical traceroute is issued as follows (removed unnecessary steps for purpose of this question): Tracing route to news-east.usenetserver.com [63.211.125.90] over a maximum of 30 hops:   1     3 ms     3 ms     2 ms  my.router [xxx.xxx.xx.xxx] ...  5    42 ms    44 ms    52 ms  113.ATM2-0.XR1.EWR1.ALTER.NET [146.188.176.34]   6    43 ms    41 ms    41 ms  193.at-1-0-0.XR1.NYC9.ALTER.NET [152.63.17.218]   7    61 ms    41 ms    41 ms  181.ATM6-0.BR2.NYC9.ALTER.NET [152.63.22.225]   8    41 ms    42 ms    47 ms  137.39.52.10   9    47 ms    42 ms    42 ms  so-6-0-0.mp2.NewYork1.level3.net [209.247.10.45]  10    65 ms    63 ms    68 ms  loopback0.hsipaccess1.Atlanta1.Level3.net [209.244.3.2]  11   104 ms    68 ms    80 ms  news-east.usenetserver.com [63.211.125.90] Trace complete. Why is that hop #8 shows less milliseconds than hop #7? Can you explain to me the time of the second column? Is it the time it takes from the source to that particular location and back? I thought that a package will go from one hop, to the other, and so I thought that as a consequence the time should increase each time a hop is reached. THANKS! --Cecilia.

sboz84 · Answer

What is happening is that the tracert is showing how long it takes from hop 1 to hop2,  then hop 2 to hop 3, and so forth.  It is not showing the time it takes from hop 1 to hop 8.  So the time you are seeing is the time from the previous hop to the next hop.  So the times will be different, and not accumative like you thought they should be.   --SBoz84   Message Edited by sboz84 on 03-02-2006 11:00 AM

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