Cox (News - Alert) Communications is discontinuing its Cox Wireless business. Cox will continue providing service for its wireless customers through March 30, 2012, and special offers will be available to Cox Wireless customers to ease their transition to another wireless provider.

But leading cable operators have been investing since at least 1994 to get into the wireless business, with paltry results. Cox says its exit from the business was based on some important tactical concerns.

Apparently, the decision was made for several reasons, including the lack of wireless scale necessary to compete in the marketplace, company officials said. Cox Communications abandons wireless

That would be, and has been, an issue for lots of other service providers as well. Wireless really is a scale business, and is brutally competitive. Many other service providers have looked at the business case and found they could not compete effectively, including firms as large as Qwest (News - Alert) Communications.

Cox also argues its 3G network was challenged by a more-competitive business environment in the wake of rapid 4G adoption by the leading mobile service providers. Even before it had rolled its service out to half its potential customers, the need to invest in 4G already was evident.

Cox also argues that inability to obtain “iconic” wireless devices such as the Apple iPhone (News - Alert) also was an issue. Cox had launched wireless service in less than 50 percent of its footprint.

Cable TV operators have been spending money to get into the wireless business for decades, with little success. In 1994 Sprint, Tele-Communications, Comcast and Cox Cable formed a joint venture to build a nationwide network to provide wireless service. However in 1998, Sprint assumed control of the business and bought the cable companies' interest in the company.

In 2005 Comcast, Cox, Time Warner (News - Alert) and Advance/Newhouse formed a joint venture with Sprint Nextel to provide a quad-play cable TV, high-speed data, landline and wireless service to their customers. But the quad-play idea never panned out and Pivot never grew beyond the initial 33 markets Sprint launched in November 2007.

Sprint said that Pivot was being hindered by provisioning issues. Time Warner later said that demand for Pivot services was "tepid." Pivot users eventually were given the option of switching to Sprint's regular service.

In 2008, Sprint and Clearwire announced that they would combine their WiMAX businesses and create a new company that would include a $3.2 billion investment from Intel (News - Alert), Google, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks and Trilogy Equity Partners.  

The new company was named Clearwire and Comcast, Time Warner, and Sprint decided to operate as MVNOs selling Clearwire's WiMAX service. Clearwire announced Aug. 3 that it will deploy TDD-LTE equipment in addition to its WiMAX network but the company admitted it needs $600 million more in capital to do that. Cable's wireless history is mixed

Cable operators have successfully entered the small business voice and data business, and have enterprise deals for long-haul transport and wireless backhaul, so the ability to enter some business markets is not an issue. Cable operators also have become the largest providers of broadband access for consumers, so growing important and sizable new consumer businesses does not appear to be an issue, either.

But wireless remains the challenge the industry so far has failed to master. One possible explanation is that all of the cable industry’s successes have come on its fixed network, though in the case of Cox Communications, the firm owned its own spectrum.

Some might be tempted to argue that there are cultural issues at work. The wireless business is a national business, and cable operators run local businesses. Wireless requires working relationships with competitors. Cable might not be quite so good at buying key infrastructure elements from competitors, and again for cultural reasons.

Anybody who ever has worked with cable operators recognizes the “not invented here” mindset that so many suppliers from outside the industry have run into. Perhaps that attitude so thoroughly suffuses the mindset that it is harder to work in the way telecom service providers always must, where no single entity ever owns everything it requires to provide a full service.

Having successfully mastered other new products and customer segments, and even allowing for the scale issues, it remains a bit of a mystery why cable operators haven’t done better at wireless.

Fragmented control might also be an issue, as most of the larger ventures have required several operators to work together. It's a puzzle, to be sure.