Last week, we heard from AT&T and how many U-verse TV customers it had (1.3 million). Today, we hear from Verizon FiOS, the county’s and country’s other sought-after alternative to cable TV.

The good news: The service continues to grow at a record pace. FiOS TV now has 2.2 million customers, adding 299,000 in the first three months of 2009, according to a note in Verizon’s first-quarter financial report. In the cities where FiOS is available, approximately 22.9 percent of the residents order the service. By the end of March, FiOS TV was available to 9.7 million homes.

But as for Orange County, I’m still waiting for an update. Back in February after I got a tour of the FiOS TV hub in Pomona, Verizon told me that the elusive TV service was available to 900,000 homes in Southern California with about 20 percent placing orders. Jon Davies, a FiOS spokesman, said FiOS penetration rates in O.C. were about the same as national.

By comparison, AT&T’s U-verse is also gaining customers.  Where is the growth coming from? A good guess is cable TV. AT&T’s chief said in a conference call that it was stealing cable subscribers. Verizon is surely feeling the same. 

Time Warner Cable lost TV customers in the fourth quarter of 2008. The company, which reports its first-quarter update on Wednesday, still had a ton of cable TV customers — approximately 13 million basic video customers and 8.6 million digital video customers. 

Verizon also said its FiOS Internet service now has 2.8 million customers. It added a record 298,000 subscribers during the quarter. The speedy Internet service, which launched well before the TV service here in O.C., is available to 10.4 million people. Perhaps because Internet was available first, penetration rates are much higher — at 26.8 percent, compared with 23 percent during the first quarter of 2008.

Still, that doesn’t help anyone in Orange County who is not in a neighborhood where FiOS is available. The list of cities where FiOS is expanding is HERE.

Verizon credited its profitable and growing wireless division for helping the company grow. The wireless division had 86.6 million customers at the end of the first quarter, a 28.8 percent increase from the prior year. The number includes customers added after Verizon’s Alltel acquisition in January. However, it didn’t address a rumor that it will start selling Apple’s iPhone in 2010.

Beyond FiOS, Verizon still offers DSL broadband. The number of DSL customers declined during the quarter by 46,000. Verizon’s broadband offerings totaled 8.9 million at the end of the quarter.

More TV news: Check out the Gadgetress Guide to local TV services. Latest TV services headlines:

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