• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, January 28, 2009

AT&T U-verse garnered enough subscribers in the October-December period to boost its rolls to an amount equal to a top-10 cable operator. The company added 264,000 homes in the fourth quarter. It now has more than 1 million subscribers.

According to AT&T, within the first 18 months service is available in a market, about 15% of eligible customers sign up for the telco TV service. But overall, its current penetration rate nationally is in the 10% range. Verizon said Tuesday that its penetration rate is some 21% in the markets it serves with its FiOS service.

On Wednesday, AT&T CFO Rick Lindner told investors: "There is every reason to expect U-verse to become a multibillion revenue stream for us over the next few years." While significant, that would be a small slice of the nearly $125 billion in revenues AT&T generated in 2008.

Over the next two years, Lindner said the goal is to boost U-verse deployment in the Southeast, where he said having TV service to package along with phone and Internet service should gain subscribers. The U-verse rollout began in Texas.

Verizon said its FiOS service, which launched before U-verse, is now in 1.9 million homes.