Sprint Nextel is to soft-launch its mobile WiMAX services in the central downtown business areas of Chicago, Washington DC and Baltimore by the end of the year. Reports suggest the networks, limited initially to Sprint employees only, could be activated this week. A wider customer trial is planned for the first quarter of next year, with full commercial launch in the second quarter. Motorola has supplied the Chicago network, while Samsung has been responsible for the Washington-Baltimore rollout. A third supplier, Nokia Siemens Networks, is currently deploying WiMAX for Sprint in four Texas markets, with these scheduled to begin trials within the next few months. Sprint has previously said it will rollout WiMAX to potentially cover at least 100 million people by year-end 2008.

The operator’s plans reflect its commitment to the technology following speculation that the company could spin off its WiMAX business. The consideration follows the recent departure of CEO Gary Forsee and the end of Sprint’s WiMAX partnership with Clearwire. The two companies initially planned to jointly develop a U.S.-wide WiMAX network but the idea was abandoned last month.