In italy the first italian NAP was created by an interuniversity consortium in Lombardia in 1994 and soon after this another one was set up in Rome by analogous consortium.

It isn't by chance that both NAPs were located on an academic campus : the need for neutral ground in which areas of competition aren't created between individual customers is a characteristic that distinguishes all exchange points in the world (many of which are still hosted in public structures , typically in research centres and universities).

In that same period , inside  the Caldera campus, in the north west of Milan, the presence of ISPs began to increase significantly and today its  the most important pool for gathering internet network operators in Italy. The strong concentration of ISPs on the site created a favourable terrain for the creation of a NAP and so, in 1996, with a voluntary initiative and without making profit, the second NAP in Milan was created on the site, the first "mix" (where "mix" meant the traffic exchange service and not MIX as a company).

Over the years, the ease of connection that can be achieved on site as made "mix" richer as the first NAP presence in Milan that, despite remaining in existance, hasn't been able to expand further.

So the problem arose that "mix", having reached such a proportion and with such a high volume of peering traffic, it was necessary to have an internal regulation comprising specifications of service levels needed for its smooth running and a physical hosting structure custom made for it.

From this point MIX S.r.L. was born with the aim of guaranteeing neutrality and functionality, in which a large amount of the operators that had contribuited to the creation and development of "mix" participated as members.

Such a structure fits in well to the present Italian Internet and optimizes its topology, putting at every ISPs, national and international, disposal a relaible and high speed bandwith that allows the management of traffic also dedicated to multimedia applications without the loss of performance and certainly represents a point of expansion across Europe for the realization and the increase of such applications.