Michael,
If I may, I'd like to clarify one of the definitions on the preceding list. Nothing personal here, but one of the explanations may be throwing some people off:
>>>A POP necessarily has a unique Internet (IP) address. Your
independent service provider (ISP) or online service provider (OSP) has a point-of-presence on the Internet. POPs are sometimes used as one measure of the size and growth of an ISP or OSP.<<<
You are apparently, IMO, combining two different and distinct meanings of the same three-letter combination: POP. One POP is an acronym and the other POP is an abbreviation.
"POP," or Point of Presence, as it relates to an ISP's (or any other telecomm-related variant's) housing and mounting of hardware in a central office or similar dwelling, does not require, necessarily, an IP address, as pointed out. Maybe it requires a postal address and a z...IP Code, but not an IP address.
A POP is merely a structure or quarters in which a service provider resides, located in their geographic serving area, normally, that houses telecommunications switching, transmission and routing equipment, and other facilities-related essentials (see below under colocation). In effect, inmost instances, it could also be called one of their nodes.
I suppose one could assume some license here, if they were referring to a newly coined term that connotes a "virtual" POP, which would require, perhaps, IP addresses, but I don't think that was the intent. Unless I'm mistaken, of course, in which case I'm happy to retract my observation and criticism, in advance.
Colocation (which I think was somehow intended to be explained here or somewhere else on the boards today) is a slightly different take on the same theme. An ISP (or any other form of carrier) "colo's" when they cut a deal with an incumbent tenant or owner of a POP (because they don't have one of their own... with the same set of conveniences). The intent is to rent, and often 'share,' some of the space and other facilities management essentials, such as:
racks to mount their own equipment,
cabling and labor associated with POP inside wiring,
direct access to sub cables and pairs (big money saver),
direct access to LD facilities and peering links(likewise),
access to the incumbent's router and switch ports (partitions),
joint use of operations support systems (OSSs),
fire protection, electric power, air conditioning (HVAC),
access to accounting & billing systems (back office)
physical and logical security,
backup generation and fuel supply,
amenities like mail room and janitorial services,
office automation services in some cases,
etc.
OTOH, the "POP" that is used to measure a carrier's size (or, more to the point, the potential subscriber base size of a particular market) is a different adaptation of the word. In this sense it is a contraction or abbreviated form of the word "p_o_p_ulation" and it refers to the head count in, or a given set of, market demographics. Cellular and PCS carriers, and sometimes ISPs, Cable Cos and others, use the term "POP" in this context. 743,029 POPs in the County of ... It's similar to the metric "homes passed" used to describe the extent to which a carrier has wired a neighborhood, or region, only "POPs" refers to folks, not buildings.
HTH, and Regards, Frank Coluccio |
