"We expect to cut a great deal of the positions through retirements and normal attrition. When you've got 260,000 people, you have people come and go," spokesman Eric Rabe said Wednesday at Verizon's annual meeting with analysts in New York.

About 6,000 of the 10,000 job cuts are expected to come from attrition. The remainder would be achieved by cutting 4,000 "full-time equivalents," meaning that overtime and contractor hires would be reduced by that number of 40-hour work weeks.

"We have laid out the possibility where there may be some layoffs, but there's no plan for any widespread layoffs," Rabe said. "A lot of businesses have announced significant work force reductions, and that is not what is going on here. This is part of the normal business as we merge these two companies."

Also Monday, Verizon announced plans to provide global communications services for big business customers by assembling a network linking the United States with major cities in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

Verizon said it will acquire fiber-optic cable, switching and transmission equipment and related network management software for a high-speed network that can carry data, Internet and voice traffic.

The first phase, scheduled to begin operations in the second quarter, will link New York to London, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt and Milan. Links between New York and Toronto and between Hawaii, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Sydney are already operating and will be part of the new network.