OXFORD, United Kingdom—The staff at Deutsche Telekom-owned One 2 One, one of the United Kingdom’s four cell-phone operators, has been warned that a major strategic review is under way within the company and this would lead to job cuts. While the company has denied these reports, insiders claim that up to 10 percent of the work force could be cut within months.
One 2 One, never the most high profile of operators, is thought to have suffered badly due to the shift by consumers to prepaid. The company, under increasing pressure from its German owners to produce better financial results, is seen as needing to heavily cut staff numbers, as against other U.K. operators that have quietly shed several hundreds during the last few months.
Separately, Virgin Mobile, which is a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) running on One 2 One’s network, said it is on target to become profitable by April 2002. The company, which reported sales of
