The economy might be down, but that won't stop AT&T from building out either its network or IBM's.

The continuous downturn of the economy is no longer surprising but this news I recently have read about is surprisingly amazing! Imagine, if other companies are very busy with cutting costs this company is even willing to spend $1 Billion? What? One Billion Dollars?

With a planned expenditure of $1 billion this year, AT&T intends to keep building out its global network -- as well as that of IBM -- while also delivering new services and network-based applications to businesses of all sizes.

Through an expanded agreement with IBM inked in 2007, AT&T and IBM are now teaming up on providing networking and computer-based services and applications to multinational corporations on a platform that increasingly integrates the global networks of both vendors. However, AT&T's $1 billion investment will also support many new services for customers of its own long-time global business network.

For the integrated services from AT&T and IBM, AT&T last year added on-the-ground and networking support in 48 countries and closed more than a dozen new contracts, AT&T said in a statement today.

Read more about this global news here.