The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the UN's telecom assembly, today announced the inclusion of WiMax in its IMT-2000 set of 3G standards.

"WiMAX technology currently has the potential to reach 2.7 billion people," says WiMax Forum president Ron Resnick. "Today's announcement expands the reach to a significantly larger global population."

The IHT's Victoria Shannon writes that the decision "opens the way for many of the ITU's member countries to devote a part of the public radio spectrum to WiMax... receivers for it could be built into laptop computers, phones, music players and other portable devices."

Here's hoping this helps to persuade Sprint not to give up on Xohm after all...

More here from the AP ... more here from RCR Wireless News ... more here from TMCnet ... more here from TechWhack ... the WiMax Forum's press release is here ... and the ITU's press release is here.