point of presence

A point-of-presence (POP) is an artificial demarcation or interface point between communications entities. In the USA, this term became important during the court-ordered breakup of the Bell Telephone system. A point of presence was a location where a long-distance carrier could terminate services and provide connections into a local telephone network. Today it has become a term often used by Internet service providers with relation to Internet exchange points and colocation centres. A medium- to large-sized ISP generally has many PoPs. Some have hundreds, some even thousands. Sometimes the term is used for an internet cafe in a franchising chain.

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