T-Mobile also provides airtime space for Virgin Mobile

Some jobs are expected to go at the firm's Hatfield headquarters and could go at call centres in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, and at Greenock in Scotland.

The firm will also close its office in London's Hammersmith. The affected jobs are part of a wider 2,200 job cuts being made by Germany-based T-Mobile.

Its plan is to save 1bn euros ($1.3bn; �688m) a year by the end of 2006.

Savings plan

Half of this saving will be reinvested to stimulate growth.

Areas where there will be investment include: integrating third-generation mobile and Wi-Fi; investment in networks; and increased retail distribution.

A spokesman for T-Mobile said on Tuesday that some of the cuts would be achieved through natural staff turnover, which runs at about 10-20% a year in the mobile industry.

Around a third of the cuts would be gained from outsourcing some call-centre and content-creation staff to third-party companies, some of which T-Mobile had kick-started.

In all, 795 jobs will have been removed by the end of 2006. The company said it would still be hiring in some areas, but not as many people as last year.

Outsourcing approach

"We are aiming to do the same work with greater efficiency," said the spokesman.

He said T-Mobile had already begun talks with the unions and would continue to do so. A report in The Guardian suggested more details of where the cuts might fall could be available in two weeks time.

"You don't need exactly the same kind of organisational structure now that mobile has moved out of its rapid customer-acquisition phase," added the T-Mobile spokesman.

The Communication Workers Union said one in eight of the company's approximately 6,500 UK workers would be affected, and that it did not rule out strike action.