STOCKHOLM, Sept 12 (Reuters) - Swedish telecom gear

maker Ericsson has created a new joint venture for

selling network software tools with more than a dozen telecom

operators across regions, it said in a statement on Thursday.

It said the firms it joined forces with to accelerate the

adoption of application programming interface (API) software

included Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone ( VOD ) in

Europe, Verizon and AT&T ( T ) in the U.S. and Bharti Airtel

and Reliance Jio in India.

Cloud communication platforms Vonage, bought by Ericsson in

2022, and Google Cloud will also join the initiative, it said.

Ericsson already in 2023 partnered with Deutsche Telekom

to offer API solutions for operators, allowing these to broaden

their revenue base, using Vonage.

The Swedish group bought Vonage for $6.2 billion to

offer operators a global platform for APIs. Ericsson has however

since then made two significant

writedowns

on the acquisition due to sluggish market growth.

Despite this, Ericsson affirmed its commitment to build

such a platform following the most recent writedown in

July

.