DENVER -- Qwest Communications has seen significant drop in the number of lines it leases to competitors since AT&T Corp. decided to leave the residential phone market business.

New line leases were 50 percent lower in August than June, chief executive officer Richard Notebaert said.

He declined to provide specific members but attributed the loss to decisions by competitors to pull back on aggressive marketing campaigns.

«We are seeing improvement month over month,» Notebaert said. «August was a quite a bit better than July. July was better than June.»

Notebaert made comments Thursday during the Morgan Stanley ninth annual Media and Communications Conference in Washington, D.C.

Telecommunications companies lease Qwest’s lines and switches to serve their customers.

AT&T, based in Bedminster, N.J., announced in July that it will stop seeking new customers for its traditional consumer long-distance service but is continuing to serve existing residential customers.

The announcement follows a regulatory decision that increases AT&T’s costs to provide local service and compete with the regional Bells, which have been courting AT&T’s local and long-distance customers.

Telecommunications analyst Tom Friedberg said it is good that the loss of lines has dwindled but noted Qwest is still losing lines.

Qwest, which provides service in Idaho and 13 other Western states, and other phone companies have been losing customers to wireless and cable providers and other land-line companies.

Friedberg said Qwest also is at a disadvantage because it does not have its own wireless service, opting instead to resell Sprint cellular telephone service.

«Qwest, like any other phone company without wireless, is in decline. This may be less bad, but it is still bad,» he said.