T-Mobile Also Abandons VMware and Migrates Tens of Thousands of Virtual Machines, While Suing Broadcom

The script is already well-known, but in this case, the scene and some actors have changed. In the United States, there is a new lawsuit involving Broadcom due to its decision to discontinue support for VMware perpetual licenses. This time on the other side is T-Mobile, a giant in the U.S. telecommunications sector, which is seeking compensations for the treatment it has received and has announced that it will completely abandon VMware.

T-Mobile in Suit Against Broadcom, Abandoning VMware

As we mentioned, the script is already familiar: a company acquires VMware perpetual licenses and signs a support contract that can be extended; Broadcom acquires VMware and asserts that such contracts, although signed, are no longer valid because it has decided so. This has occurred with Rijkswaterstaat in the Netherlands, as well as with Tesco in the United Kingdom and AT&T in the United States.

The latest case to emerge is that of T-Mobile, one of the leading U.S. telecom operators, which purchased perpetual licenses from VMware in 2023, along with a two-year support contract with an optional third year. Last year, it requested to receive that third year of support for about $5.3 million, but Broadcom informed it that "Broadcom has announced the end of availability for all perpetual products, which includes renewals outside of minimum support terms."

T-Mobile sought the intervention of a judge, and in October 2025, the judge ruled in its favor, ordering Broadcom to provide the requested support. Broadcom claims that additional support for six products cost it $24 million and forced it to assign three managers to handle it; for its part, T-Mobile responded that it only uses three of those products and has opened only two support tickets this year. Some numbers just don’t add up.

Moreover, Broadcom had also sought damages from T-Mobile because this extension prevented the now-former client from signing a new contract to purchase a subscription to VMware Cloud Foundation. The company has also complained that other clients accepted its terms: "Just to put things in perspective, there are 10,000 customers. Thousands have successfully migrated to subscriptions. T-Mobile is the white fly that has sued. AT&T is the other white fly. Thousands of customers have already been transferred under these terms and have accepted and understood what ‘end of availability’ means."

It was Judge Jennifer Schecter herself, who had overseen the case with AT&T, who expressed her thoughts on the matter, saying that customers "simply do not want to fight with Broadcom. Or maybe it’s just not worth it because they are small and it’s easier to switch to something else."

T-Mobile is now asking for it to be recognized that it was entitled to updates and for any damages that the court considers appropriate to be granted. In the meantime, the company has announced that it is migrating to alternative solutions. This involves a migration of significant proportions, as the company claims to have tens of thousands of virtual machines distributed across 303,140 CPU cores.