Cox, the nation’s third largest cable television provider, will be getting its feet wet in the cell phone business soon. The firm is looking to expand its offerings and meet customer demands for communications services. As such, Cox has partnered with its rival cable companies and Sprint to form a venture in the wireless arena called Pivot.

Though it’s still unclear whether Cox will provide its own branded handsets or smartphones, the firm will be buying wholesale network space for voice and data from Sprint and other carriers.

Here’s hoping that Cox can survive the tough MVNO space. MVNO is otherwise known as mobile virtual network operator and is operated by a company, like Cox, who doesn’t own cell towers. Rather, MVNOs purchase allotments of minutes and data from regular carriers and resells them to customers under their own brand. Other examples include Virgin Mobile, Helios, and Amp’d Mobile–the latter two have failed in this competitive space.

Cox is looking to launch its services in the later part of 2009 with $1 billion in investments. Hopefully, Pivot, the MVNO operated by Cox, will be able to offer a Windows Mobile smartphone as its flagship device. Windows Mobile is one of the two remaining smartphone operating systems that isn’t used by the big four wireless companies in the US as a flagship platform, the other being Symbian–Verizon Wireless has the BlackBerry Storm, T-Mobile has the Android, AT&T is locked with the iPhone, and Sprint and Palm have their nuptial with the Pre.

(via: TVWeek)