BEIJING, March.7 (Xinhuanet) -- AT&T said Monday it plans to eliminate about 10,000 jobs following its $67 billion acquisition of BellSouth so as to reduce costs and beef up its bussiness in the increasingly competitive telecoms sector.

    The proposed 10,000 job cuts will take place over the next three years, mostly through normal employee turnover rather than layoffs, AT&T said Monday.

    The 10,000 planned cuts are in addition to the 26,000 job cuts AT&T has already announced, 13,000 due to SB Communications'acquisition of AT&T Corp., which closed in November, and 13,000 due to shifting priorities in its operations. The combined SBC-AT&T took the name AT and T Inc.

     The latest job cuts are part of an $18 billion cost reduction plan, which is cited as one of the biggest benefits of the BellSouth deal.

    The combined company also aims to reduce annual overheads by as much as $2 billion a year once the deal is complete.

    The Bell merger deal, expected to close next year after shareholder and regulatory approval, would establish AT&T as the nation's largest phone company by uniting three US phone companies including AT&T, BellSouth and Cingular. It would have nearly half of all lines, be the largest cell-phone carrier and the largest provider of broadband Internet service. Enditem

    (Agencies)