United Kingdom: Closed consultation Ofcom interim report on cloud services market inquiry

On 17 May 2023, the public consultation closes on the United Kingdom (UK) Office of Communications (Ofcom) interim report on the cloud services market inquiry. Ofcom's market inquiry report indicates potential limitations in competition within the UK cloud infrastructure services sector, primarily due to practices by leading providers Amazon (AWS) and Microsoft. In particular, the Report identifies market features that limit competition in the cloud infrastructure services market, such as high data transfer fees, committed spend discounts and technical restrictions. The Report notes that the identified features create challenges for businesses in switching or using multiple cloud providers and create market barriers due to the lack of interoperability between the systems.