Edward Snowden's 2013 NSA leaks shed light on a Vodafone affiliated telco aiding the UK's GCHQ in collecting Internet data from undersea cables.

When France's telco Orange SA entered the Iranian market in September, the company released a statement acknowledging their efforts to avoid working with the Guards and violating sanctions in this system

Additionally, the Revolutionary Guards, who are involved in the operation of the countries central telco authority, remain under economic sanctions by the US government for activities associated with terrorism and human rights abuses.

However in voice networks where everything is under the control of the network operator or telco, many of the largest carriers use H.323 as the protocol of choice in their core backbones.

The agreement will also allow international Vodafone customers to access mobile service in Iran through this partnership, similar to the partnership that US based telco AT T recently formed with Iranian mobile operator RighTel to provide cell phone coverage to US SIM cards in Iran.