Wow, it looks like someone was listening when we said that Pivot wasn't going anywhere just an hour ago -- Comcast, Time Warner (Engadget's parent company) and Cox have all confirmed to the AP that they've backed out of the quad-play partnership, leaving Sprint alone to awkwardly hang out with Advance / Newhouse, which declined to comment. That must be a fun party. Of course, this also means both of the partnerships Sprint and Big Cable got into have now failed, but that doesn't mean the competition in the space is over: both Time Warner and Cox say wireless is still in the cards for their companies, but Pivot was just too complicated a venture. Comcast hasn't said anything yet, but promised a comment tomorrow sometime between 7AM and 11PM.

Feel free to shout it out in the comments, we know y'all are gunning for a piece. What's that? Don't quite have enough change in the couch to hit the $4.6 billion minimum bid on the 700MHz C block? How lame. Lucky for us, there are quite a few companies out there that do have that kind of cash earmarked for this and other highly desirable parts of the spectrum, which should make for some exciting bidding. Too bad FCC's auction process, which begins on January 24th, is totally blind, and with the exception of the few companies that have publicly stated their intentions to bid, we won't know much about how the auction went down until February or March. The following, however, are confirmed:

• AT&T; T-Mobile says it already has plenty.
• Cox Communications; Time Warner and Comcast aren't biting.
• Frontline; gunning for the D block.
• Google; might just do the minimum to ensure the C block is "open."
• Verizon; Sprint is busy with WiMAX.

Sounds like slim pickings, but there a bunch of wild cards out there, including satellite providers, smaller wireless carriers and even big box retailers.

[Via paidContent.org]

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.

Yeah, Sprint unveiled the UpStage today, but the other sorta big news is that they officially took the wraps off of Pivot, the new name for their new quad-play service bundling up wireless, voice, broadband, and cable TV as a single package (they've been offering service in a handful of markets for a while now, they're basically just rebranding everything). Sprint's partners in Pivot are a handful of different cable providers, including Comcast, Cox, and our arch-nemesis Time-Warner Cable (which is owned by our parent company's parent company -- not that it's done a damn thing for the totally awful cable TV and internet service we get at Engadget HQ). All the big telcos are pimping these triple-play and quad-play packages -- they see them as a way to lock-in subscribers by offering them lower prices than consumers would pay for each service separately -- but Sprint's big selling point is that they're also promising some intergration across services, like the ability to program your DVR box from your cellphone (which we've already seen from AT&T), check home email and voicemail from a single interface, and make unlimited calls between your home VoIP line and your mobile phone. Anyway, Pivot is currently available in eight cities now, with another 40 more set to launch this year. Pricing will vary by market.

Click on for a few more shots of the cellphone/DVR interface.

BusinessWeek writer Olga Kharif paints an interesting portrait of the potential state of the wireless industry following the government's unprecedented sale of spectrum this summer, called Auction 66, which could see a number of new players enter the voice and data market in the not-too-distant future. Following several years of industry consolidation, highlighted by Cingular picking up AT&T and Sprint grabbing Nextel, we could soon see companies that have traditionally delivered content in other fashions -- Time Warner, MySpace-owner News Corp., or Clearwire -- offer services that compete directly with the four major carriers. Several players, including Intel-backed Clearwire, Google-backed Earthlink, and a venture between Time Warner Cable, Sprint-Nextel, Comcast, Cox, and Advance/Newhouse Communications have already expressed interest in bidding for a slice of spectrum, while other bidders, which could include a Bill Gates- and Paul Allen-backed contender, will be revealed sometime next month. Unless the established carriers snatch up all the available spectrum, which is highly unlikely, fresh blood in the industry should bode well for consumers, who will likely benefit from lower prices, more services to choose from, and less restrictions on their bandwidth usage.