Wireless Communications

Despite raising a record $19.6 billion, the government's recent auction of prime airwaves was branded a failure by several lawmakers Tuesday for failing to accomplish its major goal: producing a national wireless network that would allow police and firefighters to share information during disasters and terrorist attacks.

YOU KNOW the shot: Seen from above, the hero (or villain) is hurtling down the freeway, top down, one hand on the wheel and the other clutching a cellphone to his ear. It's Hollywood's image of how deals are made, dates are broken and gossip is shared, at 65 miles per hour. On Tuesday, that shot will be history. California motorists -- as well as those in Washington state, where a similar law was recently passed -- will be prohibited from talking on hand-held cellular phones while driving.

Have you chosen your new hands- free headset yet? Armed with a photovoltaic cell, the new Iqua Sun is the world's first solar-powered model, which means Angelenos, beach bums, baseball players and gardeners will rarely have to recharge. -- Elizabeth Khuri -- Iqua BHS 603 Sun Bluetooth headset, $89.99, at Fry's Electronics and www.iqua.com

Wi-Fi is heading skyward. Delta Air Lines Inc. announced Tuesday that it would begin offering the service -- for a fee -- on its domestic flights this fall. The airline expects to outfit 330 planes by next summer, making it the first major U.S. carrier to offer Wi-Fi on its entire domestic fleet (not including regional subsidiaries such as its Comair service).

Nobody likes waiting on hold. If it's not the jazzy elevator music that drives you up the wall, it's the repeated "your call is important to us" message that serves not to calm you but instead to remind you that it's been a really long time and you're still on hold. Wireless companies seem not to have gotten the memo. According to a J.D.

California drivers chafing at the ban on holding cellphones can soon forget about texting, too: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has banned motorists from sending, writing or reading messages on electronic devices starting Jan. 1. Schwarzenegger signed legislation Wednesday that imposes a $20 fine for a first offense of texting while driving and a $50 fine for any subsequent violation.

Cable TV provider Cox Communications Inc. was expected to announce today that it plans to have its own cellular network up and running next year, a move that intensifies cable's competition with telephone companies. Cox had signaled an interest in building a wireless network by spending $550 million on licenses to use the airwaves. But such spectrum purchases don't always lead to the building of a network, and privately held Cox hasn't previously detailed plans for one.

The modern dating scene has come to this: a text-messaging service that hits random female subscribers in Los Angeles with such messages as "Hello to all the beautyful ladys." Tech-savvy singles are now relying on cellphone-based services to find new dates and friends. The programs help users find strangers to exchange text messages with and even find, on a handset's digital map, nearby people looking to connect. Joshua Beaman, a 29-year-old sound engineer from Calistoga, Calif.

Federal regulators on Tuesday approved the largest ever expansion of wireless Internet access, unanimously backing a controversial plan to allow a new generation of devices to use the empty airwaves between television channels to go online. Dubbed "Wi-Fi on steroids" by its supporters in the high-tech industry, the plan promises to offer wireless Internet service across America -- most likely for free -- and spur new systems for transmitting video and other data between devices in homes.

Natural forces over millennia created the geysers, peaks and canyons that fascinate visitors here. But a newer feature is emerging on this stunning landscape -- cellphone towers. One juts out from a hill behind Old Faithful; another crowns one of the park's most prominent peaks. Hikers occasionally stumble across cellphone equipment on trails around Mammoth Hot Springs. Visitors chatting on their phones have become as common in some areas as wandering bison.