Hops are basically intermediate route(through nodes) taken by data packets to reach the final destination.
Eg. when you request ping or request then through which nodes(route) your packet gets travel is hop. So less hops generally means better.
if you use Linux/
Mac then "traceroute" command else for
windows use "tracert".
View attachment 2925
So to reach
google server my data packets passes through 10 intermediate node before reaching me vice versa.
PS: I am behind NAT (Vodafone 4G)
Also coverage is not only one factor which can affect the speeds, pings etc. you also need to consider user congestion, load balancing capacity of the tower site, etc.
Eg. For Jio I get best signal -65dBm then Vodafone but due to congestion I get poor speeds as compared to Vodafone where signal is relatively weaker then Jio.