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I'm off tomorrow to the National Cable and Telecommunications convention in New Orleans. While I should have some coverage of the policy tracks and other events, the fun part is the new toy. I've been playing with Qik live video and should have brief interviews and clips from the NCTA show floor in addition to the usual panels and talks and photos.

Check here for coverage while Alex herds it all together on the front page and in the Media Center.
Posted to Cable
Om Malik wrote about this earlier, specifically that Cox has a hardware manufacturer lined up for its' network-to-be:

Cox Communications is one cable company that is wasting no time and embracing wireless. Cox's wireless subsidiary, Cox Wireless, spent around $304 million and snatched up 14 Block A and eight Block B licenses as part of the recently concluded 700 spectrum auctions. Now, there is word that the company has given the contract to build the network to Chinese equipment maker, Huawei. UBS Research in a note to its clients notes that, Huawei is going to supply CDMA gear for a wireless network.


That's not the big story. What's big is that Cox, alone among its' peers, has a huge advantage going into the coming battle for next-generation Wireless consumers.

While Comcast, Time-Warner and Charter (through Paul Allen's Vulcan) bid on, and won, licenses, building a new network is a big deal for a company with huge amounts of infrastructure to maintain. In a market (700Mhz) where Verizon has already won the "top dog" blocks, shareholders might get angry, especially if an operator bungles the venture.

Not Cox. Remember, they're owned entirely by one family. Cox Enterprises, Inc. is a totally private operation. Even their Cable company, which once was publicly traded has all of its' shares ultimately by CEI after the Cox family took it private several years ago.

According to this survey, consumers would buy wireless service from their cable company if they could. Cox has a market lock and a good reputation in its' core communities, where, coincidentally, it won the most spectrum.

Consider that unlike Charter or Comcast, which have a fiduciary duty to not waste their stockholders' money, Cox's only shareholder that matters is Barbara Cox Anthony, the mother of CEO James Cox Kennedy.

When you're playing with your family's money and you have home turf advantage, swinging for the fences isn't a bad idea. If Cox can carve out a role for itself, perhaps Verizon will feel the heat, especially since most wireless customers stay within a geographic region and aren't nationwide travelers all the time. 

With some luck, Cox could shake things up. Verizon vs Google isn't the only exciting story in this.

Posted to Cable | Wireless
The good people at the NYT have given me more reason to get excited about next month's NCTA Cable Show in New Orleans: Watching the speculation, rumour and intrigue behind who might try and take over Time Warner's cable systems, which are about to become sort of "up for grabs" as they get spun off.

Jeffrey L. Bewkes, the chief executive of Time Warner Inc., continued to trim what has for years been the world's largest media company by announcing Wednesday that it would completely spin off its cable company.

The news -- which was not unexpected and follows an earlier transaction in which a portion of the cable unit was spun off into a separate public company -- came as Time Warner reported quarterly earnings that were largely in line with Wall Street's expectations.

This is going to be fun to watch for a number of reasons. Last time there was a major group of systems up for sale was when AT&T sold off their Cable systems, leading to a "friendly" competition between Cox Communications, and the eventual winner Comcast. That victory gave Comcast a huge market advantage in the number of subscribers, but Comcast, which has a reputation for fighting like Rocky, the unofficial mascot of its' home city of Philadelpha, may not be able to benefit from going after TIme Warner without helping Cox, their old Atlanta-based foes. 

Why? When Reagan signed the 1984 Cable Act, it included the "70/70" rule, which said that if 70% of households that could subscribe to Cable Television (then a much more expensive "luxury" service) did so, the FCC could re-regulate the industry, including institute pricing and ownership regulations. 


Posted to Cable | FCC | Regulation | Time Warner | comcast

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