Minecraft query in PHP (simple ping version)

function ping($host, $port = 25565, $timeout = 1)
{

    //Set up our socket
    $fp = fsockopen("tcp://" . $host, $port, $errno, $errstr, $timeout);

    if(!$fp)
        return false;

    //Send 0xFE: Server list ping
    fwrite($fp, "\xFE");

    //Read as much data as we can (max packet size: 241 bytes)
    $d = fread($fp, 256);

    //Check we've got a 0xFF Disconnect
    if($d[0] != "\xFF")
        return false;

    //Remove the packet ident (0xFF) and the short containing the length of the string
    $d = substr($d, 3);

    //Decode UCS-2 string
    $d = mb_convert_encoding($d, 'auto', 'UCS-2');

    //Split into array
    $d = explode("\xA7", $d);

    //Return an associative array of values
    return array(
            'motd'      => $d[0],
            'players'   => intval($d[1]),
            'max_players'   => intval($d[2])
        );
}