NEW YORK — Add another sound to the symphony of screeches and clatter in New York City's subway system: cell phone chatter.

All 277 underground subway stations — but not the tunnels — would be wired for cell phones and wireless Internet service in the next six years under a plan the Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced Wednesday. It still needs approval from the agency's board, but Chairman Peter Kalikow said he supported it and expected other members would join him.

A company called Transit Wireless would pay the $150 million to $200 million cost of wiring the stations, plus about $46 million in fees over 10 years to New York City Transit, a unit of the MTA. Straphangers would be able to use their cell phones only if their carriers signed up for service on the underground network, which Transit Wireless partner Gary Simpson predicted they would.

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