Verizon said Wednesday that its Fios TV app is now supported by Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV 4K connected TV devices.

The Fios TV service still requires subscribers to lease at least one proprietary set-top, the charge for which is built into the core service offering. Currently, the linear pay TV service includes one voice-remote-enabled Fios TV One box. The Fire TV and Apple TV support, however, expand the app's usage beyond mobile devices--it was previously only available for iOS and Android smart phones and tablets. Notably, it's still not supported in the top OTT device ecosystem, Roku. 

"Now you can Mix & Match how you watch your favorite shows, too. The Fios TV Home App will be available on Apple TV 4K, Apple TV HD and Amazon Fire TV beginning July 22, 2021, creating new ways to watch live television with Verizon Fios," Verizon said in a statement.  

"With the voice-powered Fios TV One, now included in new Fios TV packages, customers get the first Fios TV box included at no additional charge, and can now watch live television on compatible devices throughout their home," Verizon added. 

Verizon reported another 62,000 lost linear Fios TV subscribers in the second quarter, which was actually a deceleration from the 81,000 who cut the Fios TV cord in the second quarter of 2020. 

But with Verizon focused on its "Mix & Match" strategy, which lets Fios Internet customers choose to bundle third-party live-streaming bundles like Google's YouTube TV instead of Verizon's linear TV product, if they so choose, the company's wireline internet business is expanding. 

Verizon reported the addition of 92,000 Fios Internet customers in Q2, a quarter that culminated its best 12-month period for Fios Internet growth since 2015. In the second quarter of last year, Verizon only added around 10,000 Fios Internet customers. 

Verizon reported total Q2 revenue of $7.8 billion, up 3.7% year over year. Fios revenue reached $2.9 billion in the quarter, up 5.4% year over year. 

Despite a major upgrade to its pay TV platform in December, Verizon Communications finished 2018 with 168,000 less Fios TV users than it had when the year started.

The wireless company, now firmly fixated on 5G technology, lost around 46,000 Fios TV users in the fourth quarter alone. This compared to a loss of 29,000 users in Q4 2017, and a loss of 75,000 in all of 2017.

Related: Verizon Shares Dip After Mixed Q4 Results

For Verizon — and for the broader pay TV business — the loss marks a turning point for what had been the industry’s fastest-growing platform, peaking at just under 4.7 million users in early 2017. Verizon ended 2018 with around 4.5 million Fios TV customers.

Related: Verizon Brightens the Corners on Pay TV Platform with Fios TV One

In December, after abandoning plans to launch a new advanced internet-protocol TV platform, Verizon rolled out on a limited basis a new equipment upgrade for its existing pay TV system, which it’s calling Fios TV One.

The upgrade, which Verizon said has been deployed to a limited number of Fios subscribers in upstate New York and New York City; Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, Pa.; Massachusetts markets; Richmond, Va., and several other markets, includes a voice remote and secondary receivers that are WiFi connected, meaning they don’t have to be placed near coax. Netflix is integrated directly into the user interface. And the platform is 4K/UltraHD-capable.

Speaking during Tuesday’s earnings call, Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg said the company is at work developing other consumer choices for video.

“We’ll of course, over time, create optionality for our customers to choose between different solutions for their TV viewing," he said. "Ultimately, we will see our customers have all the choices when it comes to how they want to consume video. We see the trends in the market.”

Separately, Verizon confirmed that it took at $4.6 billion write-down on its media group assets, formerly branded Oath and comprised of its multibillion-dollar AOL and Yahoo acquisitions. 

After abandoning plans to launch a new advanced IPTV platform, Verizon has rolled out on a limited basis a new CPE upgrade for its existing pay TV system, which it’s calling Fios TV One.

The upgrade, which Verizon said has been deployed to a limited number of Fios subscribers in upstate New York and New York City; Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, Pa.; Massachusetts markets; Richmond, Va., and several other markets, includes a voice remote and secondary receivers that are WiFi connected, meaning they don’t have to be placed near coax.

There’s Netflix integration directly into the user interface. And the platform is 4K/UltraHD-capable.

Verizon said other Fios TV One markets will be announced later in December and January.

New Fios TV One subscribers will receive a 1 Gbps internet connection and landline phone for $79.99 a month. They’ll also receive a year of Amazon Prime service and a second-generation Amazon Echo device. Existing customers can upgrade at no additional uptick to their service charge, although they will be charged for equipment.

The upgrade is sorely needed, with Verizon’s once industry-leading pay TV platform lagging behind such similarly monikered next-gen systems as Comcast’s X1 and Altice One.

Related: McAdam: No Content Buys for Verizon

And the investment is a little surprising, given Verizon’s recent emphasis on 5G and vocalized abandonment of traditional pay TV bundling.

This stance was made clear in by exiting former CEO Lowell McAdam in 2017, when he told the company’s Yahoo Finance media division, “We made our bet several years ago before we bought AOL and Yahoo and combined them together to do Oath that we weren’t going to be investing in the linear TV model I’ve said this a couple of times, I think the linear model is dead, it’s just going to take a long time to die.”

Verizon lost 63,000 Fios TV users in the third quarter, lowering its subscriber base to 4.497 million.

Notably, Verizon just took a $4.5-billion writedown on its Oath assets.