The Daily Populous Wednesday May 20th, 2026 night edition
Authored by arstechnica.com and submitted by DoremusJessup

Iran 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 a May 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 to The 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 the Asia Africa Europe-1, FALCON, and the Gulf Bridge International Cable System, according to TeleGeography, 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 a CNN interview. CNN also reported that Iranian state media outlets have “issued veiled threats warning of damage to cables.”

Cruel2BEkind12 on May 19th, 2026 at 18:38 UTC »

What are the chances they start cutting wires if people that dont pay?

Fit-Ad-835 on May 19th, 2026 at 18:18 UTC »

Oh they always do shit like this to us Iranians.

They cut off the internet for us in iran, then introduced something called "pro internet" where you pay 2 million (around 12$ for 50 gigabyte) So you can regain access to websites such as youtube or Instagram.

It may not look like much, but since the minimum wage is around 100USD per month, it's a lot for Iranians. In short, they took the internet hostage, and are taking ransom from people to let them use it in most basic stuff possible.

Prepare for more stuff like this from them, and some idiots will justify it for them.

Opening-Employee9802 on May 19th, 2026 at 18:05 UTC »

Don’t you all see yet, this will never de-escalate.