Verizon Lifts FiOS Subscribers

FiOSVerizon Communications inched up its video service, FiOS, and its Internet business to its best results yet in the third quarter.

The telecommunications and media company gained 233,000 fiber-TV customers over the second quarter to bring its total to 1.6 million. The second quarter grew by 176,000 customers over the first quarter. Verizon now says it has more than doubled its FiOS TV business during the past year; it had 717,000 customers at the end of the third quarter of 2007.

Verizon says its sales penetration--a percentage of consumer deals in the markets that now have access to FiOS fiber TV service--grew to 19.7%, versus 15.2% for the same period a year ago. FiOS TV service is currently available to 8.2 million U.S. TV households.

The company also pushed up its FiOS Internet business during the period to 225,000 subscribers, to a total of 2.2 million. But it lost 96,000 DSL high-speed subscribers. Verizon says FiOS Internet sales are now at a 24.2% penetration of U.S. homes where the service is available, versus 20% a year ago. FiOS Internet service is now available to 9.1 million homes.

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Adding the two businesses, broadband and video revenues have reached $1.1 billion in the third quarter--up over 45.3% versus the same time period a year ago.

As with most traditional wired phone service, Verizon has seen declines. In the third quarter, it dropped 12% to 21.6 million homes. However, it added 2.1 million wireless customers during the period.

Overall, Verizon had a 31% increase in third-quarter profit as the nation's second-largest phone company to $1.67 billion against the same period a year before. Verizon's revenue rose 4.1% to $24.75 billion.

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