T-Mobile Home Internet Users Hit With Modem-Busting Update, Report Says
The update may have affected around 34,000 subscribers.
Tens of thousands of T-Mobile home internet users have reportedly had their service stopped dead this week, thanks to a software update that kills their modem.
A firmware update sent to Sagemcom Fast 5688W modems used by T-Mobile home internet users has busted around 34,000 of the units by cutting them off from the carrier's network, preventing them from being reset on T-Mobile's side, according to The Mobile Report. Without a remote fix, customers have needed to swap out their modems entirely for new units. T-Mobile is investigating the issue, a spokesperson told CNET.
"We consulted with our vendor on an issue that we are still investigating that is causing intermittent connection issues on their devices that serve our home internet customers. To ensure customers have a working device we are offering them options for an easy exchange," the T-Mobile spokesperson said.
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The update seems to have affected only a quarter of users who have received the update, the report noted, and T-Mobile was said to have stopped sending the software to other users. The update was intended to fix a separate issue of unintended reboots that had impacted the Sagemcom routers.
T-Mobile's Home Internet service mostly consists of fixed wireless access, which uses modems like the Sagemcom Fast 5688W to convert signal from the carrier's 5G mobile network into home Wi-Fi. T-Mobile has around 2.6 million home internet customers, the carrier reported for its fourth quarter 2022 earnings.
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T-Mobile didn't respond to a request for comment.