T-Mobile fights Broadcom over VMware support as migration proceeds
T-Mobile says Broadcom must honor a VMware support renewal while the carrier shifts tens of thousands of virtual machines to other platforms.
By Hana Yoshida · Markets Reporter
3 min read
T-Mobile is asking a New York court to confirm that Broadcom must keep supporting VMware perpetual licenses the carrier says it bought before Broadcom changed VMware’s sales model. The dispute matters because T-Mobile says it is moving tens of thousands of virtual machines and more than 1,000 applications away from VMware while trying to reduce network, business and security risks.
In a complaint filed in August 2025 in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, T-Mobile said its VMware environment spans tens of thousands of virtual machines across about 303,140 CPU cores. The lawsuit was first reported by The Register.
T-Mobile said in the complaint that it purchased VMware perpetual licenses in 2023, along with two years of support and an option to buy a third year. After Broadcom acquired VMware, Broadcom ended sales of VMware perpetual licenses, moved toward subscriptions and grouped VMware products into fewer, costlier bundles, according to T-Mobile’s filing.
The carrier said it tried to exercise the third-year support option for $5,288,398.45. According to T-Mobile’s August 2025 filing, Broadcom refused, with a company representative telling T-Mobile by email that Broadcom’s end-of-availability decision for perpetual products also applied to stated future renewals for perpetual support.
A judge later granted T-Mobile an injunction allowing it to receive support services from October 2025 through Aug. 3, 2026, for $5.28 million, plus a $500,000 undertaking. T-Mobile is now seeking a declaration that it had the right to renew support services, along with any further relief the court finds appropriate.
T-Mobile’s filings say the company was willing at one point to pay $20 million for two years of software updates and support. The carrier tied that offer to litigation costs and its effort to limit interruption and security risks to its network and business.
Broadcom disputed the economics of the support arrangement in a filing last month. The company said it had incurred $24 million in costs to support T-Mobile on six VMware products and to assign three dedicated support account managers, according to the filing.
T-Mobile responded that it does not use three of those six products and has opened only two support cases this year. The company’s filings also stress that leaving VMware is technically difficult because of the scale of its infrastructure and application base.
The fight resembles other VMware support disputes that followed Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware. Broadcom privately settled a case with AT&T, and it remains in litigation with Tesco, according to Ars Technica.
The Register reported that Broadcom has argued T-Mobile is unusual because it waited a long time before seeking to extend support. At an October 2025 hearing, a Broadcom lawyer said many customers had already moved to subscriptions and accepted Broadcom’s end-of-availability terms, according to The Register.
Neither T-Mobile nor Broadcom has publicly commented on the case, according to Ars Technica.
This story draws on original reporting from Ars Technica.