Hawaiian Telcom is offering "retirement enhancements" to 95 employees as part of a cost-cutting effort.

Those affected are already eligible for retirement and are in various positions throughout the company, said Hawaiian Telcom spokesman Dan Smith.

Financial terms of the offers were not disclosed. Smith said he did not know how many employees would accept the offers.

Hawaiian Telcom is the state's main telecommunications pro-vider and has about 1,800 employees.

In 2005, the phone company was sold for $1.6 billion by Verizon Communications Inc. to the Washington, D.C.-based global equity firm The Carlyle Group and a small group of local investors.

Since then, the company has struggled with billing and customer service issues. Hawaiian Telcom also has faced increased competition for customers from cable and wireless communications companies.

"The real driver behind this, as always, is changes within the company to reflect our changing environment," Smith said. "Given the increasingly competitive environment, we did need to take this step to reduce our cost level. We believe that allows us to make continued investments in our network systems."

Employees eligible for the retirement enhancements were either: age 55 or over with 25 years in the company; or age 60 or older with 15 years in the company.

Reach Sean Hao at shao@honoluluadvertiser.com.