Traveling Through Networks with Geographical Challenges

In Week 3, we worked with ping and traceroute commands to get a better understanding of how information travels across the internet. I used the Guide to Ping and Traceroute Command sheet to guide me in this exercise see below for the results provided by Command Prompt. I tested Google US/Japan and Amazon US/Japan. Notably all 4 sources had 4 packets received/sent without any packet losses. Google US/Japan had avg. of 4 ms and 6 ms respectively. Amazon US/Japan had avg. of 10 ms and 67 ms respectively.


For Google, the traceroute results were fairly consistent between both countries. However, on Amazon Japan, hops 10 and 15 showed significantly higher response times compared to the U.S. version. Additionally, there were several timeouts observed on the Amazon website.





I conducted ping/traceroute tests to analyze how network performance varies when accessing websites hosted in different regions of the world. To maintain consistency and control, I focused on testing two websites: Google and Amazon. By comparing the U.S. and Japan versions of these websites, I aimed to examine the influence of geographic location on network performance. The choice of Google and Amazon was intentional to minimize variables impacting response times, as both are widely used in Japan. This selection helped reduce the impact of poor network infrastructure, which could affect the results if I had chosen other websites. By controlling for external factors, I was able to isolate the effects of geography.

The results showed that both Google and Amazon's U.S. versions had better response times than their Japanese counterparts in both traceroute and ping. Notably, Google's U.S. and Japan versions exhibited a smaller variance in response times, whereas the difference between U.S. Amazon and Japan Amazon was more significant. The faster response times in the U.S. can be attributed to geographical factors, as the ping/traceroute located in the U.S. follows a shorter network path, as opposed to Japan’s website which demonstrated the effects on geographical location on response times.


Based on the addresses that pinging produced I deduced that Google used IPV6 and IPV4 for Amazon. Prefix Broker (2025) discusses the performance and efficiency differences between IPV6 and IPV4, which may explain the notable disparity in response times between Amazon U.S. and Amazon Japan compared to Google U.S. and Google Japan. The article suggests that IPV6, which Google uses, offers more efficient network connectivity compared to the older IPV4 framework used by Amazon. This could account for Amazon’s slower response times, as well as the greater impact of geographic location on IPV4 addressing systems.


Both Amazon US and Japan experienced timeout errors during the traceroute tests, which could be due to firewall blockages or network congestion. Given that Amazon uses IPv4, which is more susceptible to network congestion, this may help explain the timeout errors observed.

Both Ping and Traceroute are essential tools for diagnosing network issues. They are primarily used to verify network connectivity and assess performance. Ping and Traceroute provide valuable insights into response times slow or high ping times can indicate issues such as congestion, routing problems, or poor internet connectivity. Furthermore, these tools help identify packet loss, which may signal hardware malfunctions or issues with the Internet Service Provider (ISP).

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