Update, Friday morning: T-Mobile said at 7 p.m. Thursday that service had been restored. Here's the statement from the company.

“Some T-Mobile customers in the Southeastern United States and Puerto Rico experienced intermittent service degradation for voice and data services earlier today. We are pleased to report that T-Mobile has fixed the equipment malfunction. Full service has been restored to our customers. We again apologize for any inconvenience to impacted customers in the region.”

Update, 6 p.m.: T-Mobile says service has been restored for most but not all of its affected customers. Here's the company's latest statement.

“Some T-Mobile customers in the Southeastern United States and Puerto Rico experienced intermittent service degradation for voice and data services earlier today. T-Mobile has identified the equipment malfunction and service has been restored for the majority of customers. Some customers in Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia may still be experiencing service disruptions while T-Mobile continues to work to restore service as quickly as possible. Again, we apologize for any inconvenience to impacted customers in the region.”

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Looks like T-Mobile USA's tough year isn't over yet. The Bellevue-based wireless provider this afternoon is acknowledging that its system has been hit with another outage, this one in the Southeastern United States and Puerto Rico.

"T-Mobile engineers and rapid response teams are working urgently to restore full service in impacted areas as quickly as possible," the company says in a post on its forums this afternoon. "We apologize for any inconvenience this may be causing our customers."

This latest "intermittent service degradation for voice and data services" appears less widespread than a nationwide outage experienced by the company last month. But particularly after the temporary T-Mobile Sidekick data loss earlier this year (caused by Microsoft's Danger subsidiary) it will be interesting to see how much patience the company's customer base has left.