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What is PING and why was it chosen as the name for the company?

An excellent question! The name PING is derived from the computer command PING. In brief, PING is a command that is used on computer networks to verify connections to other computers. For a complete rundown of what PING is, please goto The Ping Page. A computer on the network is identified by what is known as an IP address, which consists of four numbers separated by dots, such as However, there is one address that cannot be used by any computer in the world, and that address is The reason is that this address has been reserved as what is known as the loopback address. A loopback address is an address that tells the computer not to test its connections to another computer, but to test its own basic network setup. (From: Connected: An Internet Encyclopedia) is a Class A Address. (From: Linux Documentation Project) The reason it was chosen as our company name is because PING is a really cool command and secondly, the address is known throughout the world as the test loopback address, making it unique. The two traits of coolness and uniqueness were ones that our company possesses, so it was felt that the company should have a name that reflects this.