The Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference in New York this week has been nothing if not a soundbyte machine for high-level broadband industry execs. Comcast COO Stephen Burke took time to take a few potshots at DirecTV, while also commenting briefly on FiOS competition. Burke notes that FiOSTV has only been deployed in about 5% of Comcast's markets, and insists that it "remains to be seen" if Verizon's business model was sustainable in the long-term. "We do think competition is going to get worse, not better," said Burke.

Early studies on the competitive impact of FiOS on the cable industry have shown that overbuilders like RCN are being hit harder than Comcast. Sanford Bernstein Senior Analyst Craig Moffett is recently told investors that TelcoTV (FiOS, U-Verse) isn't much of a threat. Five years from now, in the year 2012, he predicts AT&T will serve just 23% of all U.S. households with U-Verse, while Verizon will serve just 15% with FiOS.

After five years and more than $23 billion spent, Verizon's FTTH investment (the most ambitious of all the baby bells) still won't have reached very far into cable competitor territory. By 2012, Moffet predicted the following cable market overlap for FiOS: Comcast, 34%; Time Warner Cable, 25%; Cox, 16%; Cablevision, 79%.

Verizon finished the second quarter with 515,000 TV subscribers to Comcast's 24 million. Also remember that Comcast is seeing explosive growth on the VoIP front, signing up phone customers (3 million in two years) faster than Verizon can add TV subscribers. Of course who "wins" is irrelevant if we don't see lower prices thanks to the competition -- and so far prices seem to be rising.