T-Mobile Sues Broadcom Over VMware Perpetual License Support in New York Court

T-Mobile filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court of the State of New York in August 2025, claiming Broadcom failed to honor contractual obligations regarding VMware perpetual licenses. According to court documents reported by The Register on July 1, 2026, T-Mobile seeks a ruling that Broadcom is legally required to continue supporting these licenses.

The legal action centers on the transition of VMware’s licensing models following its acquisition by Broadcom. T-Mobile alleges that the terms of its existing agreements mandate continued support for perpetual licenses, which allow a customer to pay once for a software version and use it indefinitely.

What is T-Mobile claiming in the lawsuit?

T-Mobile is asking the New York court to determine that Broadcom is contractually obligated to provide support for its VMware perpetual licenses. The complaint alleges that Broadcom has not upheld these obligations, creating a conflict over the maintenance and stability of T-Mobile’s virtualized environment.

This dispute reflects a broader industry tension following Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware. Broadcom shifted the company’s primary business model from perpetual licenses to a subscription-based system. This move forced many long-term customers to renegotiate contracts or migrate to different platforms to avoid significant cost increases or loss of support.

How large is the affected VMware infrastructure?

The scale of the infrastructure at the center of the dispute is substantial. According to the complaint, T-Mobile operates tens of thousands of virtual machines using VMware software. These machines are distributed across approximately 303,140 CPU cores.

Virtual machines, or VMs, are software-based emulations of physical computers that allow a single physical server to run multiple independent operating systems. For a telecommunications provider like T-Mobile, this architecture is used to manage network functions, billing systems, and customer data across a massive hardware footprint.

Why is T-Mobile struggling to migrate off VMware?

T-Mobile stated in its filing that it is already in the process of migrating its operations away from VMware software. However, the company noted that this transition is not a simple task. The migration involves moving more than 1,000 applications to new platforms.

The complaint highlights the time-consuming and technical challenges inherent in such a large-scale migration. Moving a thousand applications requires auditing dependencies, testing compatibility on new hypervisors, and ensuring zero downtime for critical services. This technical debt makes the continued support of the legacy perpetual licenses a critical requirement for T-Mobile’s operational stability during the transition.

The situation illustrates a common industry challenge known as vendor lock-in. When an enterprise integrates a specific virtualization layer across hundreds of thousands of CPU cores, the cost and risk of switching providers become immense. T-Mobile’s lawsuit suggests that the technical difficulty of migrating 1,000+ apps makes the legal enforcement of original support contracts a necessity.

Broadcom has not yet issued a public response to the specific allegations in the New York filing. The case remains pending in the Supreme Court of the State of New York.