Telecom spending will grow 1.5% to $57.7 billion after falling in 2009, according to a research note this week from Avian Securities.

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The FCC will a congressionally-mandated deadline to deliver a national broadband plan, today asking Congress for a four-week extension to more hold more briefings and gain additional input. more

Google today launched yet another way for monetizing its new mobile and telecom efforts — charging its AdWords advertisers for clicks on phone numbers in location-specific mobile ads, essentially creating a new “pay-per-call” revenue stream to join its core business of “pay-per-click” ad impressions.

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Interesting video today courtesy of Jeff Pulver’s blog and his recent 140 Character conference, with Amdocs’ Chief Scientist, Tal Givoly discussing the role that traditional service providers can play on the social Web. more

Tomorrow is Google-phone day, and the question of the day seems to be: will Google make its Android offering just a little more appealing by adding — and more importantly subsidizing — specialty apps like streaming music player Spotify into the Android OS. more

The “Google-Phone” — now officially dubbed the Nexus One — looks to be announced next week in partnership with T-Mobile — the Web is adrift with news and rumors, including look-and-feel, availability and even pricing. Here’s our best take on what this important milestone means:

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Interesting and provocative quote from IBM CEO Sam Palmisano (from a Barron’s interview via ReadWriteWeb.com, essentially claiming that Google — in particular Google cloud services — have no chance to win in the enterprise.

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Mobile operators, like their wireline brethren beside them, live in fear of one thing: being relegated to network pipes while others — device makers, OS providers, app makers — collect money working “over-the-top.” This certainly appears to be happening in the case of AT&T and Apple with the iPhone, but some interesting research emerged today that could tell a different story on Android devices. more

Google Voice users — not to mention the FCC, we’d imagine — are still waiting for Apple to approve Google’s submission of its Google Voice iPhone app. In the meantime, developer RiverTurn  has created a browser-based approximation of an iPhone Google Voice app, dubbed VoiceCentral and now available in limited beta.  more

There’s a now often-told anecdote about a sole employee within Comcast starting using Twitter to respond to customer complaints — setting off what company CEO Brian Roberts has called a “culture-changing” event.

Are telecom service providers ready to join the social media parade?

They are in Australia, where Telstra has made social media training mandatory for its 40,000 employees (video after the jump).

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