Come to think of it seems like telecomm companies have been elevated to the national security level of importance. I'm not sure if it has always been true, but

Come to think of it seems like telecomm companies have been elevated to the national security level of importance. I'm not sure if it has always been true, but with more and more reliance on tech that depends on these companies the danger is escalating. Does anyone know if these companies are vetted and inspected on any regular basis by government agencies the same way airlines for example are? A trivial mistake by one of these carriers can have dire ramifications for the entire nation as it seems to have been the cause of the current outage.