Cox rattles wireless sword (again) but is short on details (again)

ASPEN, Colo. – The cable industry remains infatuated with wireless, yet details on how it plans to tackle the market remain murky.
The latest to shine a light on the issue was Cox Communications Inc. President Patrick Esser. Esser, speaking at the Progress and Freedom Foundation’s Aspen Summit event yesterday, said the cable giant is interested in entering the mobile market, but did not provide much detail beyond the expected hyperbole.
Speaking under the guise of not wanting to “divulge too many secrets,” Esser said Cox is looking at rolling out wireless services that would integrate the content offerings of its cable service onto a mobile device. Esser said the service would have a consistent, cross-platform interface that would make it easier for customers to access their content anywhere.
So confident is Esser in the potential offering that he predicted Cox could capture 20% market share in the mobile space with its service. Based on the nation’s current 263 million wireless users (according to industry association CTIA) that means Esser expects Cox to garner more than 50 million users, a number that would put Cox just behind No. 3 operator Sprint Nextel Corp.
Cox does have an extensive spectrum portfolio made up of airwaves it acquired during the advanced wireless services auction as part of a joint venture with other cable companies, as well as 22 licenses it acquired on its own during the recent 700 MHz spectrum auction. But it’s unclear how the company would use the AWS spectrum as the licenses are owned by the JV – and the members of that JV recently signed a deal with Clearwire Corp. and Sprint Nextel for WiMAX. Further, Cox’s 700 MHz licenses leave a lot to be desired in terms of a nationwide footprint.
Finally, there’s the issue of spending billions of dollars to build out a wireless network.
Separately, Cox recently pulled out of the Pivot JV with Sprint Nextel, citing slow uptake of the service.
Verizon’s comments
Hitting a little closer to reality, Esser’s address was followed by Verizon Communications Inc. CTO Richard Lynch, who highlighted subsidiary Verizon Wireless’ plans to use Long Term Evolution technology for its next generation network. Lynch also touched on the sensitive topic of companies limiting Web access to some users.
Lynch reiterated previous announcements from Verizon Wireless regarding LTE plans as well as plans for the network to work in conjunction with the carrier’s CDMA-based network. Lynch noted the current CDMA offering provided the largest domestic 3G footprint and that with the addition of LTE, which has also been adopted by numerous international players as an evolution path for their GSM/UMTS networks, would provide Verizon Wireless with a worldwide network offering.
Lynch also addressed concerns regarding network providers limiting Internet access for consumers, which was a hot topic among Aspen Summit attendees. Lynch said that on the wireless front, spectrum limitations would always be the limiting factor in providing unfettered access to the Internet and that companies need to look after the quality of experience for all of their users when managing their wireless assets. As for the wired Internet, Lynch acknowledged that while there were fewer capacity constraints, there were still constraints and that companies need to balance the priority of packets traveling over a network in order to ensure that more time-sensitive packets – like those required for a VoIP conversation – took precedent over less time-sensitive packets.
The claim raised a few questions among attendees who questioned how Verizon would decide which packets would be delayed and whether those decisions would be based on whether those packets were coming from a Verizon-based application or from a competitor running a service over the network. Lynch said that Verizon was fully in support of an open network, but that it was still deciding internally how it would deal with traffic congestion issues.