As a sidenote, if you want to know why it's called "ping", read this article from The Institute of Internet History. http://dogme.burningman.com/~jeremymb/ioih/ It explains how the internet started out with steampipes.
A quote from the article where it describes the origin of "ping"
To keep the rust at bay, network operators and service providers employed young boys, and sometimes girls, to run through the pipes with stout wire brushes to remove built-up deposits. These boys and the runs they made were referred to colloquially as "pings" due to the noise they made by tapping their brushes on the inside of the pipe at each joint to indicate their progress. The term "ping" is still used today to refer to a method of ensuring that a route on the Internet is available and not clogged.
The work was hot, wet, dark and tough: in order to keep "down time" to a minimum, the pings were usually sent in immediately after depressurizing a transmission pipe and were expected to work at a rate of 50 yards a minute. There are several accounts of pipes being repressurized with pings still in them: whether this was an accident caused by the rush to get the system up and running again, or a deliberate action to punish pings who worked too slowly, it is not known. However, it must surely have been an agonizing, lobster-like way to perish.
Despite the many hardships, life as a ping did have its benefits - such as outstandingly clear skin - and most pings retired by the time they were 10 as they became to large to fit in the narrower transmission pipes.
