Why is my ping so high?
Routing in the transmission.
Let's say the destination server is located in Austria. Now it starts taking the route to that that server's router via different backbones and service routers scattered at different geographical locations. It depends who is your ISP and who are it's partners.
For me the connection starts from noe-bb1 (noe backbone1 - which is located at where I work actually). The signal transmits over to some gateway (whoever amsix2.routers.ovh.net is) and from there to Frankfurt's service routers. Total ping equals how long it takes to get to that destination via different SR's and BB's. If you have a different ISP then also the route may differ (hence ISP's partners).
The word "Web" originates from all this, since it's all like... well... a spider web!
If one of the backbone links falls down, it's not going be all over and you won't be able to connect to the server. Which it means is - it will try looking for another route, which might be a bit longer and therefore you will also be getting a higher ping.
