Andrew LaVallee

As US regulators step up scrutiny of the dangers of texting while driving, software makers are scrambling to develop cellphone applications that block texts or minimize the distraction of texting.

Aneesh Chopra, the White House's newly appointed chief technology officer, encouraged tech executives to adopt Google's "20% time" practice. "Many of you might know that Google, as a company, reserves 20% of their time for their engineers and others to experiment with ideas that they may not have developed," he said at a Consumer Electronics Association conference in New York.

A South Carolina prison's plan to test a cellphone-jamming system is running afoul of the wireless industry but has sparked interest among some lawmakers and law-enforcement groups. On Friday, the Lieber Correctional Institution in Ridgeville, S.C., intends to demonstrate the jamming system, made by CellAntenna Corp., of Coral Springs, Fla., that it hopes will curb illegal cellphone use among inmates.

The Federal Communications Commission's scheduled Nov. 4 vote to change how phone companies charge each other to deliver traffic is facing growing opposition from companies concerned about losing revenue and consumer advocates worried that the plan will cause phone bills to rise.

Two former customers of Qwest Communications International Inc. have filed a lawsuit against the telecommunications provider, seeking to end early-termination fees for Internet subscribers. The suit, filed in the US District Court in Seattle, is one of the first challenges to the practice of early-termination fees as it applies to broadband services.

AT&T is expected to show an accelerated drop-off in landlines and weakness in its wireless business when it reports second-quarter earnings Wednesday, offering Wall Street an idea of how much the economic slump has affected the telephone business.

AT&T posted a 22% rise in first-quarter profit, as strong wireless and data growth eased concerns about the weak U.S. economy's impact on the company. Earnings at the San Antonio, Texas, telecommunications company's wireless unit nearly doubled to $2.9 billion, as revenue increased 18%.