Ideally the network equipment would never see anything but encrypted traffic. There is no reason why a cell tower should be able to get access to the voice data

Ideally the network equipment would never see anything but encrypted traffic. There is no reason why a cell tower should be able to get access to the voice data of a call. Now of course we all know that the crypto at least in GSM was horribly weak and optional, because that is the way the US and France liked it, whereas countries such as Germany wanted strong crypto, fearing surveillance by then-enemy Russia next door. EDIT: Anyone know how that is going to be in 5G? I would be surprised if we get decent end to end encryption, but did they at least limit the number of network elements that can access the voice data?