WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif. – Verizon Communications Inc.’s fiber-optic television service, FiOS TV, has garnered top honors in the latest J.D. Power and Associates survey of customers on the East Coast.

FiOS was ranked “Highest in Residential Television Service Satisfaction in the East Region” in J.D. Power and Associates’ 2008 Residential Television Service Satisfaction Study.

It and other companies were rated on overall satisfaction, performance and reliability, customer service, cost of service, billing, offerings and promotions, J.D. Power said.

Verizon FiOS received five stars, the maximum possible, in all every category except for billing, in which the service got four stars. FiOS’s top local competitor, Cox Communications, earned four out of five stars in every category except for performance and reliability, in which Cox got three stars.

FiOS TV is now available in 8.2 million homes nationwide, according to Verizon, which says it expects to offer the service to 18 million homes and businesses by the end of 2010. About one in five customers where FiOS is available have subscribed to the service, the company said.

Marilyn O’Connell, Verizon’s chief marketing officer, credited FiOS’s performance in the survey to “stunning picture and sound quality, more and more HD and video-on-demand choices and innovative interactive features.”

A spokeswoman for Cox Communications, Amy Quinn, said in an e-mail that her company's internal research, which surveys thousands of customers every month, has not shown any decrease in customer satisfaction.

“Cox’s hallmark is our commitment to customer service,” Quinn wrote. She added: “We remain committed to continually improving our customer experience,” pointing to investments in training and new diagnostic tools as two examples.

The survey’s East Region includes Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and the District of Columbia, J.D. Power said.

In the other three regions where the survey was conducted – North Central, West and South – the highest customer satisfaction rating went to AT&T’s U-verse service, which is not availabe in Rhode Island.

This was the first year that both FiOS and U-verse were included in the study, J.D. Power said.

“With the addition of AT&T and Verizon to the residential television service market, competition has intensified among providers that bundle voice, television and data services on a single bill,” said Frank Perazzini, J.D. Power’s director of telecommunications.

“Ultimately, the consumer is going to be the big winner in this battle as cable, satellite and IPTV providers strive to offer the highest-quality television experiences at competitive price points,” Perazzini added.

The study also found a big jump in the number of households that watch high-definition television programming. The figure has nearly doubled since 2007, with HDTV reaching 55 percent of households in 2008. The percentage of customers who use digital video recordings has also risen, with 44 percent of customers using a DVR in 2008, compared to 38 percent in 2007.

The study also found that about 50 percent of cable customers currently “bundle” their video and Internet services, while 19 percent subscribe to “triple-play” services that bundle television, voice and Internet.

Satisfaction was higher among customers who receive an electronic bill, rather than a paper one, J.D. Power found.

This article has been updated with additional information.

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ), a Dow 30 company that is based in New York, delivers broadband and other communications services through its Verizon Wireless and Verizon Wireline divisions. For more information about Verizon and its Rhode Island operations, visit www.verizon.com/ri.