Making munitions for the phone wars.

• Position: High technology in North Carolina - Industry Overview

With long-distance telephone companies looking to offer local service, and local telephone companies moving into the long-distance market, there's enough pitching and tossing going on to make phone customers reach for their Dramamine.

But the increased competition will also heighten demand for improved telecommunications equipment and services, so the state's high-tech industries should see more opportunities to boost sales. "You don't have telecommunications advancements without software, and you can't have it without electronics," says Betsy Justus, president of the North Carolina Electronics and Information Technologies Association.

One of the primary beneficiaries should be Canada-based Northern Telecom, Nortel for short. An expected surge in demand for its switching equipment, software and other products means more work for Nortel and its 8,300 employees in Research Triangle Park. Switching sales for the first nine months of 1996 topped $3 billion, a 14% increase over a year earlier, but less than the company's overall growth of 21%. In March, Nortel made RTP the headquarters of its largest business unit, the public carrier networks group, which makes equipment and provides support services for local telephone companies. The move of top executives puts the group's management, research and manufacturing in one place.

Other companies expected to benefit from the telecom tango are suppliers of fiber-optic cable and equipment. In July, BroadBand Technologies Inc., a Durham-based maker of fiber-optic linking equipment, got a boost from a six-year, multimillion-dollar deal to supply Bell Atlantic.

North Carolina already makes 60% of the world's fiber-optic cable, according to NCEITA, and more manufacturing capacity is on the way. Corning, N.Y.-based Corning Inc. plans to break ground in 1997 on a $90 million, 600-job fiber-optic cable plant in Cabarrus County. International Fiberoptic Technologies in Mebane plans to hire 75 in the next year to make fiber-optic couplers at a former Duke Power plant.

The state's biggest high-tech presence, IBM, changed chiefs in Charlotte and in RTP. It also added about 1,000 workers to its RTP site, already the company's largest, bringing its total in the state to 17,000. The computer giant is putting a big emphasis at both sites on network computing.

Growing high-tech businesses and start-ups are straining a tight labor market. For example, at Keane Inc., a Boston-based technology-consulting company, 20% of...