Verizon announced today that they now have over 1 million FiOS TV customers, which by our estimation, puts them among the top ten cable companies by subscriber count. In fact they hold the tenth spot, behind Insight Communications. Depending on your perspective, Verizon might even be in the ninth spot, since Insight sold much of its cable assets to Comcast last year, and could be counted as a part of Comcast. It’s a significant milestone for a telecom company, although not as significant as Comcast holding the fourth spot among the top ten telephone companies in the U.S. The Verizon news came from their 2007 4th quarter earnings report, where it cited adding 226K FiOS TV customers. If you count Verizon’s DBS customers (as a result of their DirecTV partnership), they have over 1.8 million video subscribers. Verizon also reports pentration rates for FiOS TV and FiOS Internet in markets where it is available of 16% and 20.6% respectively.
Its funny how we try to make distinctions between cable and telco. Verizon uses virtually the same technology as a cable company – why do we even make a distinction? I think we’re past the time of cable versus telco. Its now about who provides the best value, regardless of how they get classified by analysts/press.