Hop (telecommunications)

This article is about traversal of a telecommunications network. For traversal of a computer network, see Hop (networking).

For waveforms in a frequency-hopping spread spectrum system, see Frequency-hopping spread spectrum.

In telecommunication, a hop is a portion of a signal's journey from source to receiver. Examples include:

1. The excursion of a radio wave from the Earth to the ionosphere and back to the Earth. The number of hops indicates the number of reflections from the ionosphere.
2. A similar excursion from an earth station to a communications satellite to another station, counted similarly except that if the return trip is not by satellite, then it's only a half hop.

In computer networks, a hop is the step from one network segment to the next.

References

 This article incorporates public domain material from Federal Standard 1037C. General Services Administration. Archived from the original on 2022-01-22. (in support of MIL-STD-188).