Point of Presence. A long‐distance carrier's office in a community (defined as local LATA). A POP is the place a long‐
distance carrier, called an Interexchange Carrier (IXC), terminates the long distance lines just before those lines are
connected to the local phone company's lines or to a direct hook‐up. Each IXC can have multiple POPs within one LATA.
All long‐distance phone connections go through the POPs.