AT&T today is detailing plans to spend $750 million on improving its global IP backbone to enable the company to “enhance and expand its portfolio of retail and wholesale” services.

The company feels it is building on existing market strength, and extending its network to places where its customers are doing business and demanding connections, said Bill Archer, senior vice president of AT&T product management.

“This investment is built on a series of investments we have made over the last several years in our global business,” he said.. “We think we have more than competitive capabilities in two areas – the reach of our business in supporting enterprise customers worldwide where there are more than 200 countries on our network and the depth of capability we provide – the array of services that we are supporting.”

Just this month, AT&T announced it had signed a $1 billion contract to provide global services for General Motors.

The company said it is aggressively pursuing more than 200 initiatives in the process, which is part of AT&T’s previously announced capital expenses for 2007. The effort includes extending the reach of AT&T’s network into both emerging and developed markets that it doesn’t yet reach.

AT&T’s plans include adding advanced management features to its Virtual Private Network service, building out additional broadband access via copper, fiber and wireless; expanding Ethernet access; increasing its Internet Data Center capacity by expanding existing sites and opening new ones; and expanding its network reach in the growth markets of Asia, the Middle East and Latin America and in established markets in Europe.

The expansion of its IDCs reflects growing customer interest in managed services, Archer said.

“The mission critical nature of corporate applications is such that customers can’t afford any interruptions and they want optimal performance and cost efficiency and the ability to expand and adapt to demands that are being placed on those applications,” he said. “Getting them inside the network in one of our data centers enables them to achieve those aims. Last year, we acquired USinternetworking with the intent of enriching our ability to manage those apps from our data centers and to provide more value add to our customers.”

By the end of 2007 AT&T will have 38 IDCs deployed around the world, including four centers it acquired through buying USi and BellSouth.

AT&T also is increasingly looking to wireless capabilities, including Cingular global roaming and building out 55,000 hot spots in more than 80 countries.

“Business is done 7 by 24 and it is done across geographies and it is done on the move,” Archer said. “It is crucial for our customers to have access to company resources to conduct business and to make decisions and to conclude transactions wherever they are. Having many points of presence where customers can securely access our corporate network and information resources is a huge priority and an important initiative for us. You will see us begin to take advantage of Cingular’s ability to roam seamlessly to 120 countries around the world with its remote data access capabilities and we will bring that together with our wireline remote access services so as to enable more convenience and better integration between those services and better performance.”

Where AT&T is extending its network, it has both U.S.-based and foreign-based multinationals asking for connections in newly opened economies, such as Vietnam, and in developed areas including Europe.

“We are putting access in regions of the world or countries such as Vietnam such as the Middle East where economies are opening up and economic growth is rapid and accelerating and our customers are telling us that they are entering those markets and having network capability is critical to their success,” Archer said. “We are going to those destinations to support those needs. There are also countries where there is not the same concentration of demand but our customers have needs to connect to our network and from those destinations we reference the ability to use satellite or long-line extensions to allow customers to reach the closest point on our network.”

The company intends, by the end of 2007, to have Multi-Protocol Label Switched network access from 155 countries through more than 2000 service nodes, including new network nodes in Vietnam, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Morocco and India (3), as well as satellite and long-line extension access from 51 countries, DSL network access in 34 countries, Ethernet network access in 31 countries, remote access via cellular data in 11 countries, WiFi access from 55,000 hotspots in 80 countries, and Ethernet wired access from 17 countries.