Iran Demands Big Tech Pay Fees for Undersea Internet Cables in Strait of Hormuz
Windward said operators must pay Iran or risk leaving future cable faults unrepaired, as new projects remain stalled and overland routes are explored.
- Operators in the Middle East Gulf face a choice between paying protection fees to Iran or accepting that subsea cable faults may go unrepaired indefinitely, maritime intelligence firm Windward reported.
- Since conflict began early this year, the Strait of Hormuz has become a no-go region for repair ships, forcing French company Alcatel Submarine Networks to halt ongoing contracts.
- Iranian drone attacks disrupted Amazon Web Services and forced developers to pause Middle East projects; a single transoceanic cable system costs between $300 million and $1 billion to deploy.
- Spurred by these risks, tech companies and nations including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates are developing overland fiber routes to bypass the Strait of Hormuz.
- An overland project by an Iraqi company would provide a direct fiber link between the Gulf and Europe, though competing efforts lack regional coordination and face geopolitical complications through Syria, Sudan, and Ethiopia.
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16 Articles
Iran Is Pressing Its Strategic Advantage
Military and economic coercion usually costs the coercer as well as the target. But by threatening undersea cables beneath the Strait of Hormuz, Iran may have found a way to impose heavy costs on the US government and private sector while generating revenue for itself—at least in the short term.
Iran's media, close to the Revolutionary Guards, called for charges on sea cables in the region, and for major technology companies, including Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon, to be subject to Iranian laws, as well as granting Iranian companies an exclusive right to maintain and repair them. Iran's military spokesman Ibrahim Zulfi Al-Fakari, also wrote last week that Tehran "will charge charges on Internet cables," a sign of an Iranian attem…
They said from the Trump administration that the war in Iran would be a matter of hours or days, but it is that in the end, the reality never ends up being as it seems it should be. No doubt, at this point it is clear that the resistance of the Tehran regime is not in question and that the conflict may still take a long time to resolve.In fact, the next movement of the Iranian government is already in the making, seeking to put pressure again on…
Tehran intends to impose tariffs on American tech giants for the use of undersea internet cables running through the Strait of Hormuz, IRGC spokesman Ebrahim Zolfaghari announced. State-affiliated media outlets (Tasnim and Fars) clarified that licensing fees are planned specifically for Meta, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. Iran also claims exclusive rights to repair and maintain these lines, Ars Technica reports.
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