STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Swedish telecom equipment maker Ericsson has created a new joint venture for selling network software tools with over a dozen telecom operators across regions, it said in a statement on Thursday.

It said the firms it joined forces with, in order 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.