for providers: How are you dealing with CALEA today?

As far as I can tell, and I am certainly not a lawyer, anyone with a softswitch offering commercial VoIP service is bound to comply with CALEA. That is, they will need to provide a "wiretap" capability on the IP-side just like any other phone company does for their TDM side.

However, I don't get the feeling that many VoIP providers who aren't LECs realize this, and I'll bet that there are a surprising number of LECs who aren't compliant simply because they don't know they are exposed on the IP side. On the other hand maybe everyone realizes this and just never talks about it. Searching several fora there doesn't seem to be alot of data, so I thought I would ask.

If you had to narrow it down to one the 4 vendor-agnostic choices below, how would you characterize how you achieve CALEA "safe harbor":

a. DIY - you have your own in-house developed solution. (Note, I don't think OpenCalea counts here because that project appears dead and moldy). I would imagine the very large places may do this, as the ATIS T1.678 spec is complicated.

b. Capex - you buy a system once and manage the network element yourself, place it near an aggregation point, file your 1-page procedure form with FCC and wait for a court order.

c. Opex - you continually pay for a service, they place a system near your aggregation point, they manage the network element, you file the FCC paperwork and wait for a court order.

d. You do nothing, hoping that you do not get a court order or that if you do the law-enforcement agency will accept something that does not meet the legal specs.