Dallas

Anthony Celestine was a latecomer to the Internet Age. The 40-year-old Harlem resident has owned a small Jani-King commercial cleaning franchise since 2004, but until recently, the New Yorker hadn't owned a computer or even surfed the Web or had an e-mail address. "I didn't know what none of that stuff was," he says.

AT&T Inc., the country's largest wireless carrier, is testing a technology that can improve the signal available to cell phones in subscribers' homes, and plans to make it available in a trial market next year.

John Stankey, chief executive of AT&T's Operations division, said Tuesday that the company is testing so-called "femtocells" in employees' homes, and is looking at a broader, city-sized test with customers in the second quarter.

The cost of talking on the go is coming down, thanks to an increasing number of options for using Internet calling services on cellphones as an alternative to traditional cellular service plans.

Nokia is one of the biggest makers of cellphones that include chips for using Wi-Fi, the short-range wireless technology. Some high-profile devices are equipped with the technology, including Apple's iPhone and some BlackBerry models from Research In Motion. The soon-to-be-released G1 Google phone from HTC and T-Mobile also sports a Wi-Fi chip.

“Moscow waited for almost 24 hours, during which Georgian artillery and planes were sending the capital of South Ossetia to ruins. Almost 1600 people were killed in the shelling. Now it is being presented by the mainstream media exclusively as Russia's intervention and expansionist policy.” --Centre for Humanitarian Programmes, Republic of Abkhazia

???Moscow waited for almost 24 hours, during which Georgian artillery and planes were sending the capital of South Ossetia to ruins. Almost 1600 people were killed in the shelling. Now it is being presented by the mainstream media exclusively as Russia's intervention and expansionist policy.??? --Centre for Humanitarian Programmes, Republic of Abkhazia

For the most part, the callers were calm, patiently asking for the fastest path out of New Orleans or some other Gulf Coast city as Hurricane Gustav twisted its way to the northwest.

They started calling General Motors Corp.'s OnStar service by the thousands early Saturday, and by Sunday their numbers had grown to more than 3,000 an hour.

As more than 2 million people tried to outrun the deadly storm, OnStar beefed up its staff to around 500 and put emergency plans in place at three call centers in Pontiac, Mich.; Oshawa, Canada; and Charlotte, N.C.

You've been there -- late for a business flight, you forget your cell phone charger. Or, with a six-hour family vacation flight staring you in the face, the kids need something to keep them busy. You can relax: Chargers, Sony PSPs and even digital cameras will now be easily available in 12 U.S. airport terminals, courtesy of Best Buy.

AT&T's new technology chief says his goal can be summed up in five words: "More bandwidth in more places."

"You also have to be good at getting (consumers) on and off the network," says John Donovan, formerly with Internet security giant VeriSign. That's a tall order. About 1 billion devices connect daily to AT&T's networks: local, long-distance, broadband and wireless. The number is rising thanks to America's fascination with mobile -- smartphones, laptops and more.

While the big cable and telephone companies -- along with Vonage -- are charging roughly $25 a month for Voice-over-Internet Protocol phone service, T-Mobile has made VoIP a loss leader.

T-Mobile, a subsidiary of Germany's Deutsche Telekom, announced T-Mobile@Home on Wednesday, a new plan for cell subscribers to get unlimited VoIP service for $10 a month using traditional wired or wireless phones. A $50 router is required, as well as home broadband service and T-Mobile cell service.