Good news for T-Mobile customers today, as CTO Neville Ray has announced that Magenta has expanded its 4G HSPA+ network. Ray's announcement includes eight new cities that are joining T-Mobile 4G HSPA+ family today, which T-Mobile says now reaches 225 markets. The markets joining that group today are:

• Abilene, Amarillo, Odessa, and Victoria, Texas
• Bakersfield, Calif.
• Joplin and St. Joseph, Mo.
• Eau Claire, Wis.

Additionally, Ray says that customers in Abilene, Amarillo, Bakersfield, Odessa, Port St. Lucie, and Victoria will have access to 42Mbps HSPA+ coverage. Both the Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G and HTC One S are compatible with T-Mobile's 42Mbps HSPA+ network.

Ray also touched on T-Mobile's upcoming network plans, including the move to 4G LTE. The exec reiterated that it plans to launch LTE in 2013, which it'll be doing with help from AWS spectrum gained from AT&T's failed attempt at acquiring T-Mo. T-Mobile will also be refarming some of its 1900MHz spectrum for HSPA+ support, a move that'll free up more AWS spectrum for LTE coverage. Additionally, the 1900MHz spectrum refarming will mean that more device's will be compatible with T-Mobile's HSPA+ network, which Ray says will include the iPhone.

Lastly, we've heard in the past that T-Mobile may skip rolling out 84Mbps HSPA+ coverage to help it focus better on its LTE rollout. However, Ray says that launching 84Mbps HSPA+ coverage is "is something we’ll continue to evaluate because the capability is there in the network," although launching LTE in 2013 is still T-Mobile's priority.

So there you go, T-Mobile folk. It's good to see T-Mo continue to expand its HSPA+ coverage ahead of its LTE rollout. We're also glad to see T-Mobile continue to share its plans on how it'll be rolling out LTE, and I'm guessing that the spectrum refarming that'll be bringing wider device support will make several customers happy wherever it takes place, especially all of those iPhone owners on T-Mo that've always been stuck on EDGE. Any of you T-Mobile customers live in the newly-minted 4G HSPA+ networks? If so, let us know how things are working for you in the comments below!

Via T-Mobile