Cox to cut 100 employees from shutdown of wireless phone business

Cox Communications said it will cut about 100 employees as it prepares to shut down its mobile phone business on March 30.

In November, Cox announced that it would pull the plug on its Cox Wireless service, just one year after its debut. A month later, it agreed to sell Advanced Wireless Service spectrum to Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) for $315 million.

Cox employees impacted by the cuts include engineers, product development managers and infrastructure designers, according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle. "We felt like it was time to make a strategic change," Cox spokesman Todd Smith told the newspaper.

With Cox exiting the wireless business, its cable customers in Arizona, San Diego, Rhode Island, and other markets may eventually be able to bundle mobile phone service from Verizon with triple plays of digital video, high-speed Internet and landline phone service.

Cox signed an agreement with Verizon in December that would allow the MSO to sell Verizon products to cable subscribers, and let the telco market cable products to its customers. But those deals, similar to pacts that Verizon reached with Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA), Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) and Bright House Networks, have drawn attention from regulators and members Congress.

Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, says that he will soon hold a hearing focused on Verizon's deals with the cable MSOs.

For more:
- Atlanta Business Chronicle has this story

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