Cingular Wireless LLC, the largest American mobile-phone operator, will cut about 7,000 jobs, or 10% of its workforce, to wring cost savings from its $41 billion acquisition of AT&T Wireless Services Inc.

Cingular, based in Atlanta, will make the cuts mostly among administrative personnel next year, said a Cingular spokesman, Mark Siegel. The companies, which completed the deal in October, have 68,000 employees.

The chief executive, Stan Sigman, plans to reduce costs by $2 billion a year by 2007. Cingular faces the challenge of boosting profit while keeping customers from switching to no. 2 Verizon Wireless, which has a lower subscriber turnover rate and a reputation for better network coverage.

“Knowing that the new entity is in a weaker competitive position, this would be the low-hanging fruit – improve the cost structure by cutting people,” said Daniela Spassova, a fund manager at Principal Global Investors in Des Moines, Iowa, which manages about $125 billion and holds debt issued by Cingular parents SBC Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp.

Cingular will try to ensure customer service doesn’t suffer by delaying cutting employees who deal with subscribers, Mr. Siegel said. Cingular combined customer service divisions this month and is in the process of merging networks. With AT &T Wireless, Cingular overtook Bedminster, N.J.-based Verizon Wireless by number of subscribers.

“Down the road, I think they will probably need to cut more,” Ms. Spassova said in an interview.

Shares of San Antonio-based SBC, which owns 60% of Cingular, fell 6 cents to $25.46 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Atlanta-based BellSouth, which owns the rest of Cingular, fell 22 cents to $27.14.

The job cuts are unlikely to affect employees represented by Washington based Communications Workers of America, said a spokesman, Jeff Miller. The union represents about 22,000 Cingular employees, mostly in customer service or technician positions, he said. AT&T Wireless employees were not represented by unions.

It’s too early to say where in America the jobs will be cut or in which departments, Mr. Siegel said.

Cingular’s pace of customer turnover, or churn, was 2.8% in the third quarter. AT&T Wireless had churn of 3.7%. Verizon Wireless narrowed its turnover rate to 1.5% from 1.9% a year ago. Nextel Communications Inc. also had churn of 1.5%.

“Identifying and implementing cost savings is straightforward,” said Wayne Homren, an analyst at Parker Hunter Inc. in Pittsburgh, who rates shares of both SBC and BellSouth “market perform” and said he doesn’t own them. “The harder part is stemming the loss of subscribers.”

Verizon Communications Inc., the largest American telephone company, shares ownership of Verizon Wireless with Newbury, England-based Vodafone Group Plc.