T-Mobile Home Internet Users Reportedly Hit With Modem-Crippling Update – CNET [CNET]

The update may have affected around 34,000 subscribers.

Thousands of T-Mobile home internet users have reportedly had their service stopped flat 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 crippled 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.

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.

T-Mobile didn’t immediately respond to request for comment.