【AI前沿】Iran demands Big Tech pay fees for undersea Internet cables in Strait of Hormuz

Nice cable you got thereIran demands Big Tech pay fees for undersea Internet cables in Strait of HormuzIran’s claim over subsea chokepoint pushes US tech companies to overland fiber.Jeremy Hsu–May 19, 2026 7:00 am|187Multicolored lines show undersea Internet cable routes running through the Strait of Hormuz.Credit:TeleGeographyMulticolored lines show undersea Internet cable routes running through the Strait of Hormuz.Credit:TeleGeographyText settingsStory textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidthStandardWideLinksStandardOrange Subscribers onlyLearn moreMinimize to navIran claims it will charge US tech companies fees for using undersea Internet cables that run beneath the contested Strait of Hormuz shipping lanes. The war has already halted multiple projects and led to the suspension of cable repairs in the region—and the latest Iranian threats may accelerate efforts by Big Tech and Gulf countries to find alternative routes for bypassing the Strait of Hormuz’s digital chokepoint.The latest assertions of Iranian authority over the Strait of Hormuz were announced in a brief statement by Ebrahim Zolfaghari, a spokesperson for Iran’s military and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. “We will impose fees on internet cables” Zolfaghari wrote in aMay 9 post. It was not immediately clear how Iran might implement such fees or impose its rules on cable projects, given that the majority of routes pass through Oman-controlled waters.But Tasnim and Fars, both Iranian state-linked media channels, laid out more detailed proposals on how Iran could charge license fees to US tech giants for the use and maintenance of undersea cables carrying regional Internet traffic, according toThe Guardian. For example, the Tasnim plan described charging tech companies—specifically naming Meta, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft—license fees for cable usage while also claiming that Iran alone has the right to repair and maintain the subsea cables.More than 99 percent of international Internet traffic runs through the global network of undersea cables that crisscross various oceans, connecting continents and islands. The major active cables running through the Strait of Hormuz primarily serve the Gulf countries in the region. They include theAsia Africa Europe-1,FALCON, and theGulf Bridge International Cable System, according toTeleGeography, a telecommunications research organization.The FALCON and Gulf Bridge cables run through Iranian territorial waters at certain points, Alan Mauldin, a research director for TeleGeography, said in aCNNinterview. CNN also reported that Iranian state media outlets have “issued veiled threats warning of damage to cables.”By comparison, there is “not much risk to Europe-Asia data traffic from hostilities in the Strait of Hormuz” because such Internet traffic primarily travels through cables in the Red Sea, TeleGeography wrote in a blog post. But undersea cables in the Red Sea have already seen a spate of damage in recent years, exacerbated by lengthy repair times and attacks by Houthi rebels allied with Iran.The biggest threat to the digital chokepointIran’s capability to threaten undersea cables as a way of imposing its will is uncertain at this point. Since the US and Israel started the war by attacking Iran on February 28, the US military claims to have destroyed 161 vessels of the Iranian navy, according to Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of US Central Command, intestimonygiven to the Senate Armed Services Committee on May 14. The US military has also sunk some of thesmall fast boatsoperated by Iran’s paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps when the latter threatened civilian shipping in and around the Strait of Hormuz.Thevast majority of damageto undersea cables comes from commercial ships accidentally dragging their anchors or fishing trawlers dragging weighted nets along the seafloor. So it’s not out of the realm of possibility for a more innocuous-looking Iranian ship to sneakily perform somesubsea cable sabotageif it’s willing to run the gauntlet of US military surveillance and patrols in the strait.Even a damaged commercial ship abandoned in the strait could end up dragging its anchor across some cables, as was the case with a drifting ship thatdamaged three cablesfollowing an attack by Houthi rebels in the Red Sea in 2024.However, the greatest threat to subsea cable infrastructure in the Strait of Hormuz may simply come from delays in any necessary cable repairs in the region. Such jobs require specialized ships to find the damaged area and lower grappling hooks to lift up the cable for inspection and repair, according toBBC News. That repair process can require days or sometimes weeks, which would leave the ship vulnerable to Iranian missiles, drones, or fast boats that havecontinued to attackcommercial shipping in and around the strait.“Operators face a choice: pay protection fees and accept Iranian licensing over Middle East Gulf seabed activity, or accept that future faults may go unrepai