Question about Hop count

brian1smith

Hi,

I have a question regrading hop counts.
The question is from the Tcat Houser study guide for Network+ at

http://www.studyexam4less.com/N10-002-full_Chapter_0011__Answers.asp

The question is listed below:

What is the hop count of a packet that transverses 1 hub, 2 bridges and 1 router?

*A. 3

B. 2

C. 1

D. 0

E. 12ms

Explanation: Hops are counted only when a packet is routed between two network segments, such as the case with bridges and routers. Hubs do not transverse across segments, and therefore do not add to the hop count.

I thought that tranversing a bridge wouldn't be considered a hop, so the correct answer would be "C. 1" .

I'm I correct?

Thanks

reloaded

I'd say you are correct. Remember, when looking at hops and packets, you're looking at layer 3 of the OSI model. Hubs and bridges don't care about PACKETS, they're just concerned with the physical or MAC address a frame is supposed to go to. Now, if you did a tracert from the command prompt, what's it going to show you? Nothing but layer 3 addressing, or IP addressing. So yeah, I'd say it's still 1 hop.

NPA24

I completely agree with "reloaded" it's 1 hop. You only count hops going to routers. The only reason that it might count as a bridge is if they are considering the bridge as a Layer 3 Switch. We do have Cisco switches in our environment and I also think they are configured as VLANs so they are counted in the hops when I try to ping like a regular website like google or something. The question is not worded very clearly IMO.