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Sprint-Nextel is expanding the number of cities where it plans to build a new kind of wireless network for mobile Internet. The company says it will spend $3 billion bringing WiMax to about twenty metro areas, including Washington D.C., Chicago, Dallas and Minneapolis-St. Paul, by the end of next year.

WiMax is sort of like a long-range version of the more familiar Wi-fi. Whereas Wi-fi networks can deliver the wireless Internet over relatively short distances, WiMax can blanket an entire city, making it possible for users to stay connected on the go. Last year, Intel and a few other companies completed a successful test of WiMax on a commuter train system in the San Francisco Bay Area. Riders stayed connected over a 20 mile stretch from Palo Alto to Milbrae.

WiMax offers data speeds comparable to wi-fi, and is expected to give birth to a new generation of mobile devices capable of delivering video and other high-bandwidth services.

Guest: Jeffrey Andrews, assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, and co-author of the book Fundamentals of WiMax.