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>Seriously if AT&T doing this, there is no reason to believe that other providers do not.

The article says AT&T has the data for any telco that uses AT&T switches. This is a little odd, given that the company currently known as AT&T is not the same company that used to manufacture switches; but, if this has been going on for 26 years, I suppose the government would have insisted it continue across corporate splits and mergers.

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IIRC, lots of other companies selling telecom use AT&T infrastructure (infrastructure owned by AT&T now, not infrastructure built by a different company called AT&T in the past.) There are a much greater number of companies that you can buy local and long-distance service from than companies that actually operate the physical infrastructure.

I suspect that current infrastructure is the "AT&T switches" that are relevant here.

That makes more sense, thanks.

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