Looking at the latest available telco IPTV numbers, AT&T had 231,000 U-verse TV subscribers at the end of 2007, and it is predicted that it will hit another 1 million subscribers by year’s end. It’s competitor, Verizon Communications, says it topped 1 million FiOS TV subscribers in the first few weeks of 2008.

In the fourth quarter of 2007, Verizon added a net of 226,000 new FiOS TV customers totaling 943,000 by year’s end. The company said it added its 1 millionth FiOS TV customer earlier this month, up from 717,000 at the end of September.

Verizon was marketing FiOS TV to 5.9 million homes in parts of 13 states by the close of last year, with penetration for the service averaging 16 percent across all markets. With satellite TV customers signed up via its partnership with DIRECTV, Verizon counted more than 1.8 million video customers.

AT&T said its U-verse TV weekly install rate in mid-December was approximately 12,000, beating a year-end target of 10,000 per week, and continues at a steady pace. Last month, AT&T announced it would extend its U-verse buildout to include nine southeastern states with plans to reach 30 million living units in 22 states by the end of 2010.

AT&T’s U-verse TV weekly install rate in mid-December was approximately 12,000 subscribers and continues at a steady pace.

Growth in total video connections, which include AT&T U-verse service and bundled satellite TV service, increased by 235,000 in the last quarter of 2007 to 2.3 million. Total video connections increased 55.4 percent in 2007, and at the end of the year, 7.6 percent of AT&T's primary consumer lines had a video solution, up from 4.6 percent one year earlier.

Meanwhile, the number of IPTV subscribers in the U.S. in general is projected to increase from 1.4 million in 2007 to 9.8 million in 2011 — a sevenfold increase during the next four years.

According to a new report from the Yankee Group, the 9.8 million subscribers will represent a 20 percent share of multichannel video in markets where IPTV is expected to be available.

As a result of that growth, cable TV subscribers will decline by 10.6 percent, the firm predicted — dropping from 68.5 million subscribers in 2007 to 61.2 million in 2011. Direct-broadcast satellite providers, meanwhile, will remain flat.