Iran wants to charge for internet cables at the bottom of Hormuz. Techno-giants are under attack

Iranian authorities are going to impose data transit fees on the world's largest technology companies whose Internet cables are laid along the bottom of the Strait of Hormuz, Ebrahim Zolfaghari, an official spokesman for the country's armed forces, said on the social network X. The plan, which was discussed in Iran's parliament last week, could affect corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon, CNN notes.

Media sources affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have reported that submarine cable operators will be required to pay transit licenses and exclusive repair and maintenance rights will be transferred to Iranian firms. Some of the major IT giants have invested in cables running through the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, but it is still unclear whether these trunks cross Iranian territorial waters, the channel emphasized.

Experts interviewed by CNN note that it will be extremely difficult to implement the scheme legally: U.S. sanctions directly prohibit American IT giants from making any financial settlements with Tehran. In this regard, the industry is still inclined to regard Iran's demands as an element of geopolitical pressure rather than a real economic program, the channel points out.

At the same time, he notes that the media associated with Tehran have already started hinting at possible accidents in case of refusal to pay. Two major intercontinental highways - Falcon and Gulf Bridge International (GBI) - run through the country's territorial waters. Iranian authorities could use combat divers, small submarines and underwater drones, CNN admits.

"Iran's goal is to impose such a huge cost on the world economy that no one else will dare attack it. This is the regime's survival strategy in the current war. Tehran used to understand its possession of these levers of pressure only theoretically, but now it has realized the full force of its influence," says Dina Esfandiari, head of the Middle East division of Bloomberg Economics.

"Because of security risks, international operators have always tried to lay cables around Iran - in a narrow strip along the waters of Oman - but some of the lines are still vulnerable. Any physical attack on this infrastructure could trigger an avalanche-like 'digital disaster' on several continents at once," points out Mostafa Ahmed, a senior researcher at Habtoor Research Center in the UAE.

Experts estimate that a potential "cable war" would not bring down the entire global Internet: the Strait of Hormuz accounts for less than 1% of global bandwidth, and traffic can be redirected. However, it could deal a serious regional blow, CNN writes. In the event of damage to communication lines, the Gulf countries, whose oil and gas and banking sectors depend on a stable network, will suffer severe consequences. The IT outsourcing industry in India and the speed of financial transactions between Europe and Asia would also be jeopardized.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor