Global backbone carrier Level 3 will cut 450 US staff, or 8% of its workforce.
The US-based telco said it would take a restructuring charge of up to $15 million for the redundancies.
Level 3 posted a loss of $120 million on $1.07 billion sales in the third quarter, a narrowing of last year's $174 million loss. It said it was seeing a lengthening of sales cycles for wholesale contracts and in some business segments.
It appointed a new president and COO, Jeff Storey, on Monday. Storey was CEO of WilTel until it was acquired by Level 3 three years ago.