TELECOMS Qwest's Nacchio Says Bandwidth Glut Is "Overplayed'.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)

Byline: Reinhardt Krause

Slam, slam. Phone companies are getting pounded in the stock market.

But don't think of Qwest Communications International Inc. as an anvil.

Instead, the No. 4 long-distance firm still plans to hammer rivals, says Chief Executive Joseph Nacchio.

In a conference call Tuesday with analysts, Nacchio was in a fighting mood. "I'm very troubled, annoyed, by the drop in Qwest's stock price. We're being compared with failing companies in the press," Nacchio said. "There are radicaldifferences in our product line and some of the start-ups."

He rejected media reports that new fiber-optic long-distance networks are doomed. Pundits point to the huge gap between capacity and demand.

"There's a lot of misinformation out …