The report also warned of potential conflicts of interest at the shareholder banks and favoured vendor financing of assets.

Such so-called vendor financing totaled 5 billion euros as of the end of the second quarter, Mr. Kivinen said.

Call it Wall Street's version of vendor financing - or, potentially, conflict-ridden double dipping.

In the first quarter, the company's committed vendor financing fell to $4.7 billion from $5.7 billion.

Last fall, Lucent transferred a portion of its vendor financing, which it extends to help others buy its products, to a separate entity.

I have called it "Wall Street's version of vendor financing - or, potentially, conflict-ridden double dipping."

It also offered its customers loans so they could buy its equipment, a practice known as vendor financing.

But vendor financing has become common, raising concerns that the industry may be paying for its own growth and encouraging carriers to buy equipment they cannot profitably use.

"Some accounts, if you don't participate in vendor financing, you're not going to play," Mr. Chambers of Cisco said.

These less visible forms of debt include so-called vendor financing, increasingly popular at technology companies, and syndicated lending by banks to new companies.