Cox is the cable provider in my area. I was wondering if they are able to offer or allow for customers to watch OTA channels without subscribing to cable (e.g. can I just watch the publicly available channels via plugging in the cable run that's currently in my place or do I have to subscribe, period?)
Your best bet would be to subscribe first and then cancel, they probably can't be bothered to deactivate the coax. When I lived in Newport Beach, I just plugged the coax in the wall even though there was no box in the room, but we did have a paid box in a different room. I think the tech ahs to enable the signal and if nobody has subscribed to Cox before in that unit, you're probably out of luck because they would have had no reason to activate the signal.
You can always try just buying a coax and see if it works - they are pretty cheap.
I bought a coax cable hoping I could get a signal from Time Warner here, but nothing. It might be because previous tenants have also only used AT&T and Time Warner may not have activated the signal in the unit before, or AT&T may have messed with any prior Time Warner'cabling.