Those who know me would attest that I would have been following the 2010 Federal Election very closely regardless of what was topical on the policy front. I am a political tragic and a lover of the much-criticised 24 hour news cycle - and my wife is the authority to affirm that fact.

However, regardless of the result this weekend, all of us in the internet industry have to be delighted that for five weeks, our world and our concerns were shared with the masses.

Fibre, wireless, megabits, open internet, filters, etcetera became part of the vernacular of politicians who don't even know how to turn on a computer, let alone Tweet or use Facebook.

Due to the broadband debate, more Australians now know that parts of the world have connection speeds up to 100 times faster than we do here downunder.

Most also understand that this is due to fibre-optic cabling; something no commercial enterprise has decided to build in Australia due to our small population and the unlikelihood that they will ever make a buck from a $43 billion outlay.

Most Australians also now know that an internet filter designed to censor offensive content from the internet (such as child paedophilia and how to join Al Qaeda) sounds nice, but is unlikely to work and could be abused by a group of legislators sooner or later.

If it did miraculously work and wasn't abused, the geek community that rules the online world will not stand for any censorship on the 'open internet'.

I have written a BLOG on my personal website haigkayserian.com.au, with my summation of these two topics - National Broadband Network (NBN) and the Internet Filter - which served the internet industry brilliantly by raising internet to the very top of the policy pile, ahead of Health, the Economy, Industrial Relations, Immigration and Climate change...

Please click here to read the blog.