Cox&#39;s Cellular Network Plans Are Totally For Real This Time, Says Cox

Cox Communications will create their very own cellular netw—wait, hold on. This is the third time they've announced this. What's going on?

Here's the chronology: Cox, the cable and internet provider, announced plans to start a wireless network; Cox then clarified, stating that they actually meant that they were, at least for the time being, partnering with Comcast and Time Warner to piggyback off of Sprint in a venture called Pivot; this dissolved. Now, Cox is going it alone.

The announcement spares us the useful details, like when the network will go live, or what the flagship handsets or handset manufacturers might be. They are promising some kind of mobile TV, a carrier-wide app store, and mobile broadband, but none of these things are revolutionary, or even particularly exciting. But we really shouldn't be sour about this. New competition, even if it's from a stodgy old cable company like Cox, is more than welcome in the lumbering wireless industry. [WSJ]