I like a person who can admit they are wrong. So even though I don’t know Michael Rollins and his research crew at Citigroup, I admire them. Yesterday, in a research note now reverberating around the Web, Rollins admitted he “got it wrong” when he gave Verizon’s stock a “sell” rating. He not only changed that rating to “Buy,” but raised Verizon’s price target considerably, a move which in itself drove the stock price up slightly.

More important than how this change of mind reflects on Rollins, however, is how it reflects on Verizon and other broadband service providers investing billions into next-generation architectures. If this is an indication that Wall Street is beginning to see reason on the potential payoff of network investments, that is good news for the entire telecom sector.

Verizon had been under pressure because of the $18 billion commitment it made to constructing FiOS, its fiber-to-the-premises network, because Wall Street was looking at the bottom line of that investment today and its dilution of Verizon cash, instead of viewing what the network could deliver, in terms of services, revenues and profits in the future.

Interestingly, industry analysts were of a totally different mind. While Wall Street has rewarded AT&T for its more conservative approach – building fiber-to-the-node – industry analysts have lined up to call that telecom giant short-sided in its investment. With a few notable exceptions, such as my friend John Celantano at Skyline Marketing, industry analysts have been predicting that AT&T will change its strategy, either publicly or behind the scenes, to embrace an FTTP approach.

For their part, AT&T officials remain stoic and outwardly committed to their approach. But they have been upfront in admitting that one reason for the less-aggressive fiber deployment was fiscal prudence. In other words, AT&T either agreed with Wall Street on the investment issues or was influenced by its opinions.

Either way, the impact of Wall Street’s attitude toward investment in next-generation networks has held sway over the U.S. telecom industry. As far away as China – where government ownership of everything makes investment risk a bit of a moot point – DaZhong Zhang, vice president of Shanghai Media Group and CEO of its IPTV joint venture, BesTV, attributed what he feels is laggard IPTV deployment in the U.S. to the Street.

“Operators don’t have enough confidence in IPTV in the states,” Zhang told a group of U.S. analysts and media last month. “Technology is one thing, business is another. Investors on Wall Street would like to see relatively short period of return – they don’t have confidence in a long-term investment.”

The same thing has been said, publicly and privately, by equipment vendors in the U.S., and by some network operators as well.

So to the extent the recent Citigroup about-face represents a changing tide, the entire telecom industry stands to benefit. And the timing couldn’t be better, coming only weeks before the largest telecom trade show in the country will showcase the best of what could be deployed and offered in the months to come.