Cox is ramping up their wireless capabilities. They intend to offer a 3G wireless product across their footprint using primarily their own 700 Mhz spectrum, and perhaps their share of AWS spectrum obtained through SpectrumCo, the cable company consortium that owns AWS spectrum covering 267 million pops. Light Reading’s Cable Digital News is reporting that Cox recently engaged BCI Communications for the build out of their 3G wireless network.
For the time being, Cox appears to be going it alone on wireless. Their cable counterparts, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House have hitched their wagon to WiMAX through investments in Clearwire. Although, all of these cable companies are also sitting on a nice swath of AWS spectrum through the aforementioned SpectrumCo. It’s never been real clear what they intend to do with that spectrum. Regardless, the overall wireless intentions of cable companies seem to be gaining some clarity. Their first foray into wireless, Pivot, failed miserably. But sometimes failure is a good thing. You gain some hard lessons learned. We suspect all of these cable companies have digested those lessons and are now motivated to get it right. Comcast has announced Portland as their first WiMAX market. Cox is moving forward with their own 3G initiative, that also has a path to LTE for 4G. Cablevision has decided to concentrate on a mesh WiFi strategy, Optimum WiFi, for now. The competitive landscape for wireless should become more and more interesting over the next few years as these telecompetitors begin to execute their wireless strategy.
