The Secret System Behind Every Call You Make Is About to Change Hands
Every phone call you make and text you send passes through an invisible system so critical that the FBI queries it millions of times annually. Most Americans have never heard of it. But this “ultimate little black book”–a system that maps not just phone numbers, but traces the patterns of number ownership and manages important parts of our daily communications–is about to vanish behind layers of private ownership and regulatory resistance.
August 2024’s quiet announcement that Koch Equity Development ( described by Bloomberg as, “a private investment arm of Koch Inc.”, which recently rebranded earlier this year from Koch Industries Inc. to simply, Koch Inc.) would acquire iconectiv (formerly Telcordia) for $1 billion barely made headlines outside of industry publications. The deal appeared, at surface level, to be about phone number portability–the system that lets consumers keep their numbers when switching carriers.
This investigation reveals how America's most sensitive telecommunications infrastructure could soon be controlled by a private conglomerate that is simultaneously fighting to weaken federal regulatory authority.
