Cox Communications, the big cable subsidiary of privately held Cox Enterprises, headquartered in Atlanta, GA, was told by a Delaware court in early October that it could not partner with Verizon on a mobile services launch, according to Broadband Breakfast. The court upheld a prior contractual obligation that Cox Communications had with Sprint and that Cox must launch new wireless services with T-Mobile.
In a 2017 patent dispute resolution, the court determined that Cox made an enforceable agreement to use Sprint’s network if it decided to offer mobile wireless services. Cox was required to negotiate with Sprint but failed to do so and decided to pursue an agreement with Verizon instead.
Cox’ Wireless History
Cox serves 6.5 million customers, including 355,000 commercial customers. The company operates six cable systems in 18 states in the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, South, Southwest, and West.
Ten years ago, Cox offered mobile phone and wireless services under its Cox Wireless brand in four markets – Orange County, CA; Hampton Roads, VA; Oklahoma City, OK; and Omaha, NE. Under a marketing moniker of ‘Unbelievably Fair,’ Cox offered to refund money to subscribers for any unused minutes.
Cox Wireless operated as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) on Sprint’s 3G network. But Cox had bigger wireless plans in mind.
The company paid nearly $305 million for 22 700 MHz licenses in FCC Auction 73 in 2008, with the idea of building its own 4G LTE network. It committed to invest another $500 million for its own standalone mobile network.
By May 2011, however, Cox Communications shelved its plans to build a standalone network. Instead, it would offer wireless service as a Sprint MVNO and migrate all Cox Wireless customers to Sprint by the end of 2011.
In November 2011, Cox Communications announced it was halting sales of all its wireless branded products and that existing Cox-branded wireless operations would be decommissioned by the end of March 2012. Cox also retracted its plans to offer wireless services reselling Sprint service as a MVNO.
A Fresh (Wireless) Start
FCC Auction 105 that concluded in August 2020, offered the company a fresh approach to wireless. Cox Communications was the third largest cable company winning bidder, behind Comcast and Charter Communications, for 3.5 GHz CBRS Priority Access Licenses (PALs). Cox garnered 470 PALs in 173 counties for almost $213 million. Like Comcast and Charter, the PALs that Cox won overlay its 18 state cable operations.
More importantly, the company now is taking a selective approach to building its wireless infrastructure. In September, Cox Communications unveiled a 12-month pilot program with the city of Las Vegas to deploy one of the first managed private networks (MPN) launched by a U.S. city to facilitate Smart City use cases.
For the pilot, Cox and the city will leverage Cox’ CBRS PALs in Las Vegas to track visitor attendance and after-hours activities at the local Baker Park for parking lot management, safety detection and trend analytics. Cox and Las Vegas hope to determine how networks of the future can be used to scale and support Smart City solutions and services.
Cox will install a centrally located, three-sector CBRS cell site in Baker Park to provide private wireless connectivity. The overall network will use a combination of Cox’s existing fiber network and the city’s ‘street furniture’ infrastructure.
The CBRS network will initially support video cameras and associated sensors fixed to existing light poles throughout the park. A combination of cameras and radar sensors will be connected to CBRS-enabled wireless bridges fed from a central cell site.
The city will have access to all data generated in the pilot through Cox’s Smart Communities platform. This includes historical data on parking lot usage, occupancy, and turnover. Real-time event notifications from safety cameras will provide enhanced visibility and public safety in the park. By leveraging this data, the city can strategically dispatch patrols to the park only when needed.
Cox points out that such private network solutions ensure secure and reliable data transmissions while all confidential, personal, and sensitive data is encrypted to protect the privacy of park visitors.
By John Celentano, Inside Towers Business Editor
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