Point of presence - Definition and Overview

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.