Digital bottleneck: How Iran wants to use internet access as leverage in the war
Tehran is floating the idea of charging the world’s largest tech companies – including Google, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon – for using the undersea internet cables crossing the Strait of Hormuz in a new attempt to exploit its control over the critical waterway to ratchet up economic pressure on the West.
Issued on: 20/05/2026 - 21:18Modified: 20/05/2026 - 21:46
4 min Reading time Share By: Sébastian SEIBT
Encouraged by its successful wartime blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran now wants to extend its control beneath the critical waterway by imposing fees on the internet cables that traverse the Strait.
As negotiations with the US stall, Iranian authorities are eyeing the “treasure at the bottom of the Strait of Hormuz”, according to Iranian state-affiliated media.
‘At least seven cables’ lie beneath
The Islamic Republic wants to charge technology giants like Google, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon licensing fees for the use of the undersea cables. The plan would also monopolise the repair and maintenance of these subsea cables, presumably by giving such contracts exclusively to Iranian companies.
Finally, the tech giants would be required to comply with “the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran”. What that would mean remains unclear.
Observers have long suggested that Iran would start “launching provocations in the underwater domain”, noted Christian Bueger, a professor of International Relations at the University of Copenhagen.
“At least seven cables lie beneath the waters of the strait,” according to The Guardian. Other cables exist but are not yet operational, according to maps of global internet infrastructure.
Iran says it has the right to impose licensing fees on the Strait because it contains “not a centimetre of water that is part of the high seas”, according to state-run Fars News Agency. The narrowest part of the Strait is 21 nautical miles long, or about 33 kilometres.
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Iran is correct that the national territorial boundaries extend up to 12 nautical miles from the shores of Iran and Oman, the countries that flank the Strait of Hormuz. Therefore, no part of it falls outside the maritime sovereignty of these two states.
Yet of all the cables in the Strait, “only two of them are within Iranian territorial waters – Falcon and Gulf Bridge International”, said Jonas Franken, an expert on digital infrastructure and maritime security from the Technical University of Darmstadt.
A grey zone in international law
On the other hand, Iran seems to be eager to exploit certain loopholes in international law that are not addressed by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Ambiguity prevails over “whether there is any special situation in the Strait”, said Bueger, adding that there is a legal grey zone regarding the “duties and obligations states have in terms of safeguarding cables passing through their exclusive economic zones".
This grey zone isn’t necessarily advantageous for Tehran. The legal basis for Iran’s plan is "very weak" under international law, according to Basil Germond, professor of international security at Lancaster University. "All states retain freedom to lay and maintain cables, so legally Teheran cannot arbitrarily restrict maintenance,” he said.
Read moreHormuz domino effect: How the Middle East crisis affects food, flights and global supply chains
But international law has so far not prevented Iran from disrupting commercial shipping, and isn’t likely to derail any plan the regime might have when it comes to imposing licensing fees on undersea cables.
What counts is the extent to which disrupting data flow or damaging cables is feasible, Germond said.
Iran could coerce the tech giants into paying the toll by “interfering with data traffic, threatening to disrupt data flow, damaging cables, or simply preventing maintenance”, he said.
“Teheran can try to be credible through coercion in the same way it does with commercial shipping attempting to transit through the Strait of Hormuz,” he said.
Prior incidents in the Baltic Sea have proven that submarine cables are vulnerable to accidents or sabotage, and Iran could choose this route if firms fail to pay.
But US companies might not even have the option because of US sanctions on Iran prohibiting most economic transactions with the Islamic Republic.
Risky operations
Sabotaging an undersea cable in the Strait of Hormuz could also be more challenging than in the Baltic Sea, Franken said, as the seabed in the Strait "is sandy and muddy, which is perfect for burying cables”. No official statistics exist on the security measures taken by operators for each cable but he said it wouldn’t be surprising if these critical infrastructure elements were buried several metres below the seabed in this geopolitically volatile region.
Damaging these subsea cables would demand time and organisation. The vessels in charge of this task would be “easy to spot and could be targeted by the US”, Franken said.
Once source quoted by The Guardian called this type of operation a “suicide mission”.
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This may all make the Iranian regime think twice. Notably, the undersea cables primarily provide internet access to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar; Europe and the US are unlikely to be affected.
The main risk would be further destabilisation of a region already in the crosshairs. “The more cables that would be cut, the more the impact would be felt in terms of slower connection and reduced bandwidth,” Bueger said.
Iran’s plan to extend the war into the domain of undersea cables proves that Tehran still has some cards left to play as it wages the asymmetric warfare that Bueger says has “proven to be the only – but efficient – way to resist the US” juggernaut.
This article has been translated from the original in French.
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