Term: POP [Point Of Presence]

POP is an acronym for Point Of Presence (Not to be confused with POP3 – for email-related usage, see POP3).

Point of Presence typically refers to the physical location at which telephone lines, internet circuits, and cable television signals are placed immediately prior to the individual, specific connections to the homes and businesses using those services. For example, the wires that provide your telephone (land) line are connected to equipment back at the telephone company’s point of presence for your area.

The term isn’t always strictly defined or used, as there may be intermediate equipment used to aggregate services into a higher-capacity connection back to the service provider’s facilities. Technically, either those facilities, or the equipment in between, could be referred to as the point of presence.