Today Sprint Nextel announced the addition of 17 more markets to its growing list of U.S. cities covered by WiMax 4G. Some of the new cities include Austin, Maui and San Antonio. Look for WiMax service to light up by the end of 2009.This is a pretty significant expansion for Sprint's burgeoning WiMax network, which, so far, is available only in a handful of markets.

The new cities include: Abilene, Texas; Amarillo, Texas; Austin, Texas; Boise, Idaho; Bellingham, Wash.; Charlotte, N.C.; Corpus Christi, Texas; Greensboro, N.C.; Killeen-Temple, Texas; Lubbock, Texas; Maui, Hawaii; Midland-Odessa, Texas; Raleigh, N.C.; Salem, Ore.; San Antonio, Texas; Waco, Texas; and Wichita Falls, Texas.

(Yup, Texas is sure getting a motherlode of WiMax.)

These cities join Atlanta, Baltimore, Las Vegas and Portland. Sprint says that Boston, Houston, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., are all slated for 2010.

In order to access WiMax, you'll need to buy the proper equipment, which at the moment includes laptop dongles and the Samsung Mondi. Most of the laptop dongles are dual-mode, which means they run on both Sprint's CDMA EVDO Rev. A network and its WiMax network (where available).

Sprint claims WiMax wireless Internet download speeds reach a peak of 10Mbps and average between 3 and 6Mbps. That's a lot faster than what 3G networks offer, which typically fall in the 700Kbps to 1.5Mbps range.