GTT Communications

"Nestled in a suburban Washington, D.C., office park, across the street from a shopping mall, a technology company that counts the U.S. Defense Department as its biggest customer is charting out a new frontier: providing Internet service to Iran. But GTT Communications Inc.-headquartered in McLean, Virginia, just a 15-minute drive from the headquarters of the CIA and hired by various unnamed U.S. intelligence agencies and satellite operators-hasn't exactly been touting its new venture. The company has issued no press release about its deal with an undersea cable network that sells Internet services to Iran and other Persian Gulf. (One of the cables comes ashore at the city of Bushehr, home to a nuclear plant that's been the subject of intense debate about its role in Iran's nuclear program.) Instead, the partnership was announced in a single tweet last May; both parties have been largely silent about the deal since then. When contacted by The Daily Beast for details about the deal with the Doha-based submarine cable operator, Gulf Bridge International, a GTT spokesperson said the agreement wouldn't be finalized for a few more weeks. And yet technical data shows that GTT was providing Internet service to Iran for months." (Daily Beast, "Meet the U.S. Defense Firm Supplying Iran’s Internet," 11/1/15)