NEW YORK – Judging from Verizon’s posturing and preparation for a looming strike by 78,000 workers, including 1,300 in Maine, it considers the threats posed by a changing telephone industry worth risking a lengthier walkout than three years ago.

According to the workers, the telecommunications business has always been about change, and the technological and regulatory revolution of today is no more dramatic than in years past.

Verizon says it is working hard to avert a strike as contracts expire Saturday night for the technicians and call center operators responsible for maintaining local phone service across most of the Northeast and mid-Atlantic.

But the nation’s largest local phone company has been girding for battle – and a lengthy strike – for months in a highly public, pro-active manner that suggests a greater level of determination than before the 18-day strike by the same unions in 2000.

The preparations have come on multiple fronts:

. Tens of thousands of non-union Verizon managers have been trained to replace the workers who climb poles, splice wires and answer calls. These include managers from the GTE operations Verizon had acquired just weeks before the 2000 walkout who were not called upon to help out in that strike.

. Since early this year, phone bills have been urging customers to sign up for Verizon’s Web site, providing user names and passwords so they can check their accounts, request repairs and order new services by going online rather than calling the company. About 3 million have registered.

. Verizon has been running expensive print and broadcast ads in major media across the affected markets to press its points with customers.

. The company also has been reaching out pre-emptively to reporters with detailed presentations to depict a rapidly changing industry that requires new flexibility in the way a company determines the size and location of its work force.

To the union, all this talk about change is merely an excuse to gain a free hand with layoffs, which are limited by the current contract to 0.7 percent of the work force per year.

“Was the breakup of AT&T in 1984 not a watershed moment? As new technology was introduced [in the 1980s and 1990s], was that not watershed? That’s the nature of the industry,” said Candice Johnson, a spokesperson for the Communications Workers of America, which represents about 60,000 of the employees covered by the expiring contracts. “The telecom industry has been changing since dial-tone days, and our union has pulled a lot of telecom companies along through the change.”

Clearly, this is not your Ma Bell’s telephone industry anymore. Even before the last strike, the business of telecommunications was under assault by technological and regulatory upheaval.

The emergence of mobile handsets, e-mail and instant messaging as real-time alternatives to an old-fashioned telephone began putting a serious dent in revenues by the late 1990s.

More recently, evolving government regulations have enabled local and long-distance companies to enter each others’ markets, fueling price wars in a fierce battle for customers. Down the road, improving digital technology will make it easier for callers to bypass traditional phone lines altogether.

At the time of the 2000 walkout, the big three long-distance players were actively competing for local customers in just one market served by the striking workers: New York. Verizon now faces competition for local service in five states covered by the union contracts that expire this weekend.

On the flip side, during the last strike, Verizon only offered long distance in two states: New York and Massachusetts. Now it offers long-distance in 49 states and Washington, D.C.

The results of these technological and regulatory changes grow more striking with every quarterly report.

Earlier this week, Verizon reported that its Verizon Wireless joint venture with Vodafone added 1.3 million customers from April to June for an industry-leading total of 34.6 million. Verizon also reported a gain of 1.4 million long-distance lines for a total 14.6 million.

However, the company also reported that it now provides local service to 56.8 million lines, a loss of 700,000 for the quarter and about 4 million fewer lines than at the end of June 2000.

In fact, the last time that Verizon’s local business grew was in the quarter preceding the 2000 strike.