A wide array of communications technology standards groups is being asked to create a combined brain trust to ensure that cloud systems can work together, an organizer said. Robert Marcus, a consultant on telecom-cloud standards to Chinese equipment vendor Huawei, said he will propose to the representatives of more than 20 organizations Tuesday at the Telecom Cloud Information Workshop in Santa Clara, Calif., creation of a Cloud Experts Working Group. It would advise industry and particularly government, in aid of cloud interoperability. The group would offer advice on cloud technology, open source and reference architecture, he said.

The FCC should focus on helping the buildout and expansion of 4G services, Commissioner Meredith Baker said in a keynote at the Phoenix Center telecom symposium Thursday. She called moving forward on net neutrality rules “a legal and political mistake.”

The first version of the draft FCC net neutrality order cites both direct and ancillary authority as giving the commission purview to bar ISPs from discriminating in the type of traffic they carry on their networks, agency officials said. Ancillary authority was a prominent issue in April’s Comcast ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which held that the commission was out of bounds in relying on Title I. But some law professors said there are risks to a Title I approach, even if specific sections of the Communications Act are also cited.

TV and Radio broadcast groups are increasingly working with online companies to offer daily coupons, getting in on a craze highlighted this week by Google’s reported $5.3 billion bid for Groupon, industry executives said. “We're not sure if this is white hot for the next six months or the next six years, or even the next six days,” but “we love the space,” said Kerry Oslund, vice president of digital media for Schurz Communications. Radio stations have long offered half-off deals of the sort that have driven sites such as Groupon and Living Social to popularity, but the offers are newer territory for TV broadcasters, Oslund said.

A measure to block net neutrality rules has a very good chance of clearing Congress and confronting the president next year, even with the Senate remaining in Democratic hands, the Republican counsel to the House Communications Subcommittee said Thursday. A resolution under the Congressional Review Act to nullify the rules and bar any similar ones would be filibuster-proof and require only a simple majority vote of each house of Congress, said Neil Fried, the subcommittee’s senior minority counsel. Congress would have 60 days early next year to adopt the resolution, he said on a panel in Washington of the American Bar Association’s antitrust section.

SEATTLE -- Having made its name beating Apple in the desktop wars, Microsoft is now taking cues from its consumer-savvy Cupertino rival in more closely managing the various Windows platforms, tech pundits said late Wednesday on a panel hosted by the Puget Sound Business Journal’s TechFlash blog. They also predicted a steep climb for Google’s Android platform versus Apple’s iOS which is found in the iPhone and iPad. The tech community was gathering for TechFlash’s annual Flashies awards, in which readers voted for “do-gooder” (Northwest Entrepreneur Network), “newcomer” (Founder Institute, a startup and entrepreneur training program), “stunt” (T-Mobile’s designation of its HSPA+ network as 4G) and “debacle” (Microsoft’s short-lived Kin phone) of the year, among other categories.

Verizon Wireless will turn on its LTE network Dec. 5 in 38 markets, Tony Melone, the carrier’s senior vice president, said in a conference call Wednesday. It will offer two 4G mobile broadband plans and will educate and alert consumers about their data usage under the offerings, he said.

Career FCC staffers’ work on drafting an order on Comcast’s plan to buy control of NBC Universal may not result in the deal’s being approved as quickly as had been expected, because of the agency’s attention to net neutrality, said many agency and industry officials watching the review. They said staff work appears to be far along on the multibillion dollar deal, and ex parte filings indicate that the companies in the deal are discussing possible conditions on it. Conditions don’t seem to have been settled, agency and industry officials said. Chairman Julius Genachowski had at one point reportedly hoped to have an entire draft of the order available around Thanksgiving (CD Nov 5 p3).

Stand down on net neutrality, top Hill Republicans told FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski after he announced the commission would move forward with a rulemaking. (See separate report above.) While many lawmakers issued angry statements Wednesday, more concrete Hill action isn’t expected until January. Genachowski won guarded support for his proposal from some Democrats, including Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski formally announced Wednesday that he'll bring a net neutrality order to a vote at the Dec. 21 meeting. The draft had been expected for several days. Genachowski and his staff said they have broad support from industry, public interest and other stakeholders. Senior officials said privately that they had secured no commitments not to challenge the proposed rules in court. Nonetheless, the chances of being sued by a major ISP are much lower if the commission doesn’t reclassify broadband and instead proceeds with net neutrality sticking with its Title 1 authority, industry executives and lawyers said.