FiOS subscribers get telephone and broadband Internet service. In some areas, they also get cable television, depending on local franchise approval; Verizon said Wednesday it has nearly 500,000 TV subscribers.

Verizon launched FiOS in August 2004, and the million-subscriber milestone results from relatively steady growth. In the first three months of this year, the company added 177,000 FiOS subscribers for a total of 864,000, so the latest figures don't appear to represent a speedup of deployment.

However, a greater percentage of FiOS subscribers now also get TV: At the end of the first quarter, only 40 percent had TV, compared with 50 percent now.

Verizon said Wednesday that a family of five in Massapequa on New York's Long Island had the millionth home to be connected. FiOS is available mainly in suburban areas in 16 states.

The FiOS project, which Verizon bills as a complete replacement of its copper network, has faced skepticism from investors because of its $23 billion price tag. Verizon is the only large phone company to embark on such a project; others are generally deploying optical fiber to homes only in new developments.

But Verizon's stock has rallied this year, as investors appear to warm to the project, which allows the phone company to encroach on the market for cable TV, deliver ultra-fast Internet downloads and save on line maintenance.