Anxious wait for telecom workers

The group is understood to be planning the redundancies at its network and technical systems operations, which have bases in Bristol, and 86 technical staff at its centre in Darlington.

Orange employs more than 5,000 staff in centres across the region at Peterlee, in County Durham, and at North Tyneside and Washington, in Wearside.

The company confirmed it was planning a small number of redundancies, but said it was too early to give figures.

A spokeswoman for the company, which has 13,500 UK employees, said the cuts would not affect call centre or shop staff.

It had begun to inform people of the changes yesterday, she said.

''These are only proposals at the moment, and are not related to call centres or other customer-facing roles," the spokeswoman said.

''It is part of an ongoing process, designed to make Orange more efficient and more focused on its customers in a highly-competitive market.

"The departments likely to be affected are spread across the UK, including our head office in Bristol.

"We would stress that the changes are only proposals at this stage, and we cannot confirm how many jobs could go until we have finished consulting all the staff who may be affected."

France Telecom owns Orange and has operations in 19 countries.

The redundancies are part of a strategy the company announced about a year ago under former chief executive Sol Trujillo, who has since left the group.

Mr Trujillo set out plans to make the company's products more user-friendly and to increase usage of non-voice mobile phone services.

In February, Orange said it had boosted revenues by nine per cent last year to £12.25bn as a result of more customers signing up for its services.

As well as the 86 technical staff Orange employs in Darlington, it also has five in Washington, one in North Tyneside and one at its centre in Peterlee, along with thousands of customer service staff in the region.