Most of us who are involved in the mobile industry spent last week absorbing and processing all of the activity and announcements emanating from the CTIA show in Las Vegas, which wrapped up on April 3rd.  One announcement that I found particularly interesting involved Cox Communication and its continued development of a cellular network to augment its business as a cable operator.

In February of 2007, Cox began operations as an MVNO, selling mobile service provided by Sprint.  A year later, Cox announced that it would build out its own cellular network.    In 2006 Cox and a group of cable companies purchased Cellular Spectrum at a cost of $2.4 billion.  Cox's Spectrum licenses cover the areas around San Diego, Atlanta, New Orleans, Las Vegas, and Omaha, as well as much of Kansas and southern New Mexico.

Wireless phone service will add to Cox's video, phone, and Internet services, which will head off competition from AT&T and Verizon, who have been lately offering video as well as phone services.   The move by companies such as Cox into triple- and quad-play offerings is good news for telecom infrastructure vendors who have encountered sluggish growth over the past few quarters.  Scientific Atlanta (now Cisco) provided some of the early mobile backhaul infrastructure for Cox, and the two companies continue to work together.