• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, January 29, 2010

AT&T's telco TV service added more than 1 million net new customers in 2009, continuing a growth rate that is moving it rapidly up the charts in terms of the country's largest TV distributors.

AT&T said Friday it posted a net gain of 248,000 new subscribers to U-verse in the October-December period, bumping its nationwide deployment to 2.1 million.

Penetration rate is around 13%, but up over 20% where U-verse has been marketed for 24 months or more.

Verizon's telco TV service FiOS saw net adds of TV customers slow in the fourth quarter, but AT&T increased its base by about 8,000. Verizon, which launched FiOS before U-verse was marketed widely, has about 800,000 customers more than U-verse.

FiOS also announced that it is on course to build out its all-fiber-optics network for all New York City's five boroughs by mid-2014. In 2009, the company expanded the service into an additional 140 neighborhoods throughout the city, bringing its network total to about 810,000 households.

For AT&T, U-verse also appears to be helping drive adoption of other services, with the company saying about 75% of customers subscribe to a package that can also include broadband, home phone and wireless.