• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, April 27, 2009

Along with AT&T continuing to mount a challenge to cable operators, Verizon said Monday that it now has 2.2 million subscribers for its telco TV service -- more than all but the top-five cable distributors. Verizon added 299,000 new customers to its FiOS offering in the first quarter. That was slightly less than the 303,000 it added in the previous three-month period. Still, over the past year, it has added 1 million.

Nationwide, 23% of customers now eligible to subscribe to FiOS TV -- a total of 9.7 million homes -- have done so.

Separately, Verizon also said it added 298,000 new customers to its sister, fiber-optic-based FiOS Internet service in the first quarter, a critical issue for cable competition. Verizon is looking to attract customers to a bundled TV-Internet-phone package, which could peel customers away from cable and its successful triple-play offering.

On a conference call, Verizon CFO John Killian said the company will continue with "an unrelenting focus on maximizing the value of FiOS" - which Verizon has invested heavily in to build out its service. FiOS TV is available in parts of New York City, and is coming to Philadelphia.

"Our strong operating momentum in FiOS will continue to provide us with a great opportunity to drive both customer and revenue growth," Killian said.

FiOS has more customers overall, but AT&T with its U-verse TV service posted a faster rate of growth in the January-March period. AT&T brought in 284,000 new customers, some 22% of its total of 1.3 million.