One would hope that the US has something like list X status for companies that are sensitive (and telcos and coms companys are) and have senior people and those with acess to sensitive information vetted.

I know a senior developer in British telecom who worked on the system that tracks every private circuit in the UK and she was being PV'd (positively vetted its called developed vetting these days) - as she had root access to this system same as being TS cleared in the USA.