Cox to shut wireless network it started building

(AP) -- Cox Communications, America's third-largest cable company, says it will shut down the wireless network it has started building.

The network is one more false start for a cable company in the wireless world. Cox built and sold a wireless network in the `90s. It then started and folded a wireless consortium with Sprint Nextel Corp. and other cable companies in the last decade.

Last November, Cox used Sprint's network to launch service in Oklahoma City; Hampton Roads, Virginia; Omaha, Nebraska; and Orange County, California. It says it will continue that arrangement, selling phones and service.

Cox spent $550 million to buy wireless spectrum rights for its own network and possibly hundreds of millions more to build it out.

Cox is privately held and based in Atlanta.