Bloomberg reports that an Ericsson executive has suggested that the company may work with financial community partners to acquire network assets from operators, in order to enable mobile companies to shift network infrastructure expenditure to an operating cost from a capital cost. This would be an expansion of the Swedish infrastructure giant’s existing network management services, which sees it taking over operational responsibilities for infrastructure from the telco – it has signed more than 300 such contracts since 2002, making it responsible for more than 750 million subscribers worldwide. However, this strategy does not see it taking on financial ownership of the networks, which remain a depreciating asset of the operator.

Valter D’Avino, VP of Managed Services for Ericsson, notes that the company would not be interested in “pure leaseback that is one-to-one,” Bloomberg reports, indicating that the acquired assets would be available for other operators to use. It was noted that the company has already managed consolidations where companies merge networks while maintaining ownership – the company is a supplier to the MBNL joint venture of 3 and Everything Everywhere in the UK, for example. The report also notes that Ericsson has identified Africa as a “promising” area for managed network services, with multi-country operators including Bharti Airtel and Etisalat named as targets.