I'd agree 100%. If I were establishing an outer limit, I would look at a couple of tier 2 long distance carriers (because there are very few that are nation wid

I'd agree 100%. If I were establishing an outer limit, I would look at a couple of tier 2 long distance carriers (because there are very few that are nation wide), and add in a company like Backblaze or CrashPlan. It would make a fun exercise to dig in to the quarterly filings of some tier 2 LD carriers, but they buy and sell each other so often, and there are so few that operate nation wide, it ends up being a lot of work. Another possibility would be to compare to a mobile operator like Virgin or MetroPCS. Neither operate their own networks, but they do have their own backend systems. That would give you an idea of the size we're talking. It's really not all that big. I don't think people realize that the technology that drives telephone networks (especially once you get outside the last mile) lends itself very well to snooping.