NEW RING TO PHONE COMPETITION

Federal regulators sent down a decision today that will help usher in a new era of personal communications devices, including pocket phones that are far cheaper than the current cellular devices. The Federal Communications Commission revised its strategy for how it would split up the publicly owned radio spectrum, making the business potentially more lucrative--and thus more attractive to service providers--and opening up the business to new competition. "People will be able to afford these things for nonbusiness purposes," says TIME Washington correspondent Suneel Ratan. "You won't be looking at $600-a-month cellular-phone bills anymore."