US multinational telecoms company AT&T is weighing up whether it should sell its Digital Life home security business to pay down debt ahead of its planned $85.4bn (£66.1bn)  acquisition of Time Warner.

According to Reuters, citing people familiar with the matter, the sale of Digital Life would do little to reduce AT&T’s $143.7bn debt, but it could pave the way for more subsidiaries to be flogged.

The home security business accounted for a small amount of AT&T’s $163.8bn revenues in 2016. It reaches 80 US markets and is estimated to have somewhere between 400,000 and 500,000 customers, but has not been able to match Comcast’s rival service with its close to 1m customers.

A sale could give AT&T close to $1bn. It is alleged that buyout firms and home security companies may show interest in the unit. AT&T has already sold one of its home security units this year – when it got rid of DirecTV’s Lifeshield to private equity firm Hawk Capital Partners for an undisclosed sum.

The telecoms company teamed up with Telefonica’s O2 in the UK in 2016 to bring the Digital Life platform to its first European location, under the name of O2 Home.