A bribery scandal that spanned six countries and, in some cases, dates back to the ‘90s weighed heavily on Ericsson’s Q3 earnings. The vendor reported a net loss of $710 million on $5.88 billion in revenue during the quarter.

Ericsson recorded a provision of $1.23 billion to cover the estimated costs for resolving a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Justice, which have been investigating the company since 2013 and 2015, respectively, over an alleged kickback scheme.

“Of course, we are ashamed of our historical performance, but we confront the issues head on and we’re now investing significant resources to strengthen our future compliance program,” CEO Börje Ekholm said during an earnings call, according to a Seeking Alpha transcript.

While geopolitical issues, namely the U.S.-China trade war and global economic headwinds, have wafted into the telecom sector, Ericsson remains confident that 5G deployments will gain momentum in the coming year and fuel its growth for years to come, according to Ekholm.

Ericsson equipment, including radios and the network core are now live in 19 5G networks, the company reported. The company also has 27 commercial 5G contracts with named operators to date, which puts it well behind the 60 commercial 5G contracts that Huawei reported earlier this week.

Total sales grew 6% during the quarter, and revenue from Ericsson’s networks division grew 9.4% from the year-ago period and almost 4% from the previous quarter. “We see the market for 5G being much bigger than we’ve seen for 4G,” Ekholm said, adding that 5G will “create new applications, both for consumers, but most importantly, for enterprise.”

Ericsson is vying to capture that growth potential around 5G by reducing costs and investing in research and development for 5G technology, its cloud-native portfolio, and artificial intelligence, Ekholm explained. He identified global operator “pioneers in North America and Northeast Asia” as the earliest adopters of 5G network technology.

“We are excited about the opportunities to expand the market with our 5G technology as we enter the enterprise space and many more advanced consumer applications,” Ekholm said. That expansive opportunity was reinforced in a report published this month by Ericsson that predicts service providers could capture up to $700 billion in new revenue from enterprise or B2B-related efforts.

Ericsson also, late in the quarter, announced plans to build a 300,000-square-foot factory in Texas that will enable it to build more wireless network gear in the United States. The factory, which will produce 5G and advanced antenna radio systems for 5G deployments in North America with a special emphasis on industrial IoT, is slated to open early next year.

Ekholm also, prompted by an analyst’s question during the earnings call, shared his views on the development of open radio access network, which is increasingly gaining interest among large operators for its ability to reduce costs and vendor lock-in by disaggregating hardware from software and adhering to open protocols.

Ericsson joined the ORAN Alliance, one of many open source groups targeting this space, earlier this year because it believes in the value of open architecture, Ekholm explained. “We’ll of course be an important part of the market going forward,” he said, adding that Ericsson views it as a “natural extension” of its business.

“We are working to position ourselves as a strong competitor” and “provider of an open solution,” he said. However, Ekholm added that it remains “a bit unclear” how OpenRAN is going to impact the market because it’s making a mark in 4G networks today but “we haven’t really seen that on 5G.”

That dynamic is due to change in the near term, according to vendors like Mavenir, which just made its fully virtualized 4G and 5G OpenRAN offering commercially available to operators. Competition with Mavenir is also likely to increase following the opening of its new innovation center in Stockholm, which puts it in close proximity to Ericsson’s headquarters.

The U.S. market has seen “great growth” in 2019, and Ericsson doesn’t expect that to slow down in 2020, Ekholm said during the earnings call. “We think there are a couple of things speaking in favor of the market.” The vendor is also striving to gain a stronger presence in China as 5G deployments get underway. Ekholm noted that Ericsson has no insight into potential 5G contracts or price levels in the Chinese market, but it expects early 5G contracts to be determined in the next few months.