Tuesday’s Federal Budget held few surprises for IT and Telecommunications. As expected key announcements related to broadband with the Australian Broadband Guarantee funding increased to $270M over four years to 2012. View Minister’s press release here.

The other development worth noting is the transfer of the committed $4.7B for broadband infrastructure into Building Australia Fund which sees the newly-created agency, Infrastructure Australia, given responsibility for communications infrastructure as well as national transport and infrastructure. View Minister’s press release here.

Internet content also received some additional focus with a total of $125.8M over four years committed to support a suite of cyber-safety measures.

Internet filtering, law enforcement measures, education resources and public awareness initiatives are all part of the program. Given the convergent trends and the rise of mobile broadband these measures are all relevant to the mobile sector and AMTA will be strongly engaged via its education program and membership of the new Cyber-Safety Consultative Working Group. See article in today’s Snapshot. View Minister’s press release here.