Are you wondering if Mikey is listening to your phone calls? I’ll tell you a bit about how the system works, and you be the judge.
When you pick up the phone, you hear a dial tone. That tone comes from a computer at a
central office near you. The first six numbers of your telephone number are called
NPA (area code) NXX (exchange). When you pick up the phone and hear a dial tone, you are ‘talking’ to the computer at your CO.
When you dial a number, your CO computer uses the NPA-NXX of the dialed number to determine how to route the call. If you’re calling someone who is connected to the same CO, the computer switches you to that number & you’re talking. In case I forget to mention it later,
every switch event is recorded so the phone company can properly bill you. When you call your Mom next door, an AMA record is generated when you pick up the phone, another when you dial a number, another when your call connects and another when you hang up. Let me repeat that again –
every switch event on
every switch your call touches
EVERYWHERE makes a record of your call. More than you ever wanted to know about telephone billing systems can be found
https://www.opastco.org/docs/OTCOSSPaper%2520final.pdf+%22message+processing+system%22%2Bama%2Boss&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1">here.
Now it gets interesting. Central Offices are geographically grouped into a
Local Access Transport Area (LATA). Here’s a
LATA map of the US. More than you ever wanted to know about telephone concepts can be found
here,
here, and
here. If your call leaves your LATA, it is routed over the backbone network. The big players in the national backbone sandbox are AT&T & MCI Worldcom (Verizon.) We know where they stand.
Cell phone basics are explained
here.
Did you know that Verizon's U.S. footprint covers twenty-nine states, stretching coast-to-coast from Florida to California, and encompassing the north-eastern seaboard and Washington D.C? And that Verizon also offers wireless service in forty-nine states? (I think of
Verizon as the Halliburton of the telephone business.) Throw in SBC & AT&T customers, and that’s a shitload of data being collected on a lot of people.
So what do ya think, Sparky? Has the NSA tracked any of your phone calls?
on edit: to correct English