CNET News' Marguerite Reardon reports that Sprint Nextel has announced that Chicago and the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. metro area will get WiMax by the end of 2007 -- and the following cities will get the service in 2008: Austin, Boston, Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Portland, Providence, Salt Lake City, San Antonio and Seattle.

And according to PC Magazine's Sascha Segan, the company's plan is to make the network all about open access to devices and applications. "We are building the mobile Internet -- we are not building 'cellular Internet,'" says Sprint's Atish Gude.

More here from BetaNews ... more here from Mobile Magazine ... more here from GigaOm ... more here from Engadget ... and Sprint's press release is here.