August 21, 2008: Cox opens the kimono on 700MHz plans
Ever since it spent more than $304 million on 22 licenses in the 700MHz spectrum auction earlier this year, cable services provider Cox has been tight-lipped about its wireless plans. The cable company had already announced that it inked a deal with Chinese telecom equipment provider Huawei to build a CDMA-based network, but precious few other details have been announced. That all changed earlier this week at the Progress and Freedom Foundation's annual tech policy summit, where Cox president Patrick Esser opened up ever so slightly about the cable MSO's strategy for the airwaves:
"I won't divulge too many secrets here, but we'll focus on providing simple calling plans, integrating all our services into one device with a consistent cross-platform interface; and making our content and applications mobile," Esser said in prepared remarks.
Earlier this year Cox and a consortium of a half dozen other cable MSOs agreed to link up with Sony Electronics to use tru2way, an open source platform approved as a Cable Labs standard that will enable access to interactive digital and HD video without the need for a set-top box. The platform aims to work across devices regardless of manufacturer.
If Cox's stated plans come to fruition, the prospect of cable TV services and related applications making their way to the mobile platform could be a key threat to many existing mobile TV efforts currently working to establish themselves in the marketplace. Of course, the cable companies have been working for years (Pivot) to make the transition to wireless and have hit plenty of bumps along the way. Cox's recent announcement coupled with the slate of cable companies teaming up with Clearwire for Xohm could lead to an emerging class of competitive offerings in the mobile TV market.
In other news, our Mobile Internet Watch column is penned by Netbiscuits' head of marketing Lars Hartkopf. Check out the article for a breakdown of the intricacies and best practices for developing mobile applications.
