As it promised it would, Cox went big in the glitzy 700MHz auction a few months ago, coming away with a nice chunk of spectrum valued at some $304 million. That amount of outlay is nothing to sneeze at -- and it sounds like Cox is fully prepared to take the investment seriously, with president Patrick Esser commenting this week that his company intends to invest over half a billion dollars into the airwaves by the time all is said and done. Where's that money going? Some sort of vague "differentiated product" that it believes will help it miraculously capture 20 percent of the wireless market share by providing "simple" calling plans, integration with Cox's other content and services, and a consistent user experience across all its platforms. Bottom line, he really couldn't have revealed any less than he did -- but if we had to guess, they're looking to do some phones that can consume media from their set-top boxes and vice versa. Starting up an all-new network on the 700MHz band sure doesn't seem like a very cost-effective (or coverage-effective) way to do that, though.

Looks like being partners in a company called "SpectrumCo" just isn't what it seems -- although Comcast and Time Warner Communications have already dropped out of the 700MHz auction running, upstart Cox Communications has announced that it's ready to bid at least the $4.6B minimum in January's auction to try and get a little piece of the pie. Cox says it's trying to bundle all its products together, and that the airwaves will allow for greater mobility and convergence -- or, put more simply, "We like having options." Of course, it's got to muscle out all the other players first, but at this point it certainly seems like anything could happen.