Long Island is the triple play battleground reports USA Today, and outlines how Cablevision and Verizon are going at each other, something we have noted in the past. It seems the initial political bickering has now become a full blown marketing skirmish.

Verizon is deploying what it calls a “guerrilla marketing” campaign. It sends salespeople door-to-door, sets up product demonstrations at concerts and community events, and slaps messages on Chinese food containers, pizza boxes and take-out coffee cups.

Cablevision is countering by its own offensive, selling triple play bundles and offering discounts. It already is offering speed upgrades and has signed up over a million voice customers. (IP Democracy has more recent data.) Which means, Verizon will have to do better than that – on price to get consumers to switch. All this should be good news for locals – lower prices, better products. There is a game of one-upmanship going on there.

“The products are shockingly similar to the average consumer,” (Leo) Hindery says. And Verizon “has to achieve penetration. When you have to achieve penetration against an incumbent with comparable technologies, then you tend to compete on price.”