NSA recording all the voice calls in one country; 5-6 more countries in the pipeline

I’m more interested in the method the use. Don’t they need some sort of hardware access for phone calls made only inside a country? I’m no tech expert but I do understand that internet traffic is rerouted multiple times often through foreign hubs even if the websites server is located inside the same country. Is the same true for phone calls? If an irish citizen is calling another irish citizen via landline how is it possible to intercept the communication ( especially in large volumes) without access to in-country telecommunication infrastructure?

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