1) The bill is to the government and is typically in the range of $750 per day per tap.
2) Any network admin inside of telecom will tell you that this is a terrible system to implement and maintain.
3) Zero operators perceive wiretapping as a profit center; it is an annoyance that is tolerated as a condition of doing business in the US.
If you evaluate the decisions that operators make as participating in the game theory that is our world, they're actually quite rational.
Lastly, if you think $21M represents a material payoff to a company like Sprint or AT&T, I would suggest that this is a few orders of magnitude shallow for such a concern.
The cited article is an example of a reconciliation fraud of a very minor nature, not an example of hush money from the government.
2) Any network admin inside of telecom will tell you that this is a terrible system to implement and maintain.
3) Zero operators perceive wiretapping as a profit center; it is an annoyance that is tolerated as a condition of doing business in the US.
If you evaluate the decisions that operators make as participating in the game theory that is our world, they're actually quite rational.
Lastly, if you think $21M represents a material payoff to a company like Sprint or AT&T, I would suggest that this is a few orders of magnitude shallow for such a concern.
The cited article is an example of a reconciliation fraud of a very minor nature, not an example of hush money from the government.