It has the simplest name, but the sort of shadowy overtones that national security writers lust after.
Team Telecom, a mostly informal working committee of the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Justice (along with affiliated agencies), has for years been quietly tasked with evaluating and maintaining the security of America telecom infrastructure in concert with the FCC. Its primary objective as far as we have been able to ascertain is to monitor the ownership of key telecom assets to ensure they don’t fall into the hands of suspect nations (think China, Russia, etc).
Last year, Mark Harris over on Extra Crunch took an in-depth look at the extreme delays companies can experience going through a Team Telecom review (membership required), which in the case of China Mobile’s expansion into the U.S., extended up to seven years before the Team rejected the Chinese bid for market entry.
