What is Hop (networking)?
[[Computer network|Computer networks]] route data packets between a source and a destination. In most cases, the source of a packet is not directly attached to the destination, the packet needs to travel through other stations in between the two. Each time a packet travels through a [[router]], or a [[gateway]] it takes one hop. To prevent network congestion, the maximum number of hops a packet can take is limited. With IPv4, this count is known as [[time to live]], with IPv6 it is called hop count. Each time the packet takes one hop, the count is [[Wikt:reduce|decremented]]. When it reaches zero, the packet is [[Wikt:discard|discarded]] if it has not reached its destination. {{tech-stub}} [[Category:Computer networking]]