The term broadband has meant different things to different groups and has changed over time since about the 1980’s. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) currently defines broadband as advanced telecommunication services with transmission speeds exceeding 200 kilobits per second (kbps)* both upstream and downstream. Other groups, such as the Swedish governmental commissions consider 5 megabits per second (Mbps)** symmetrical connections to the user to define broadband. Although there have been extreme variations in the definition of what constitutes “broadband,” most would agree that what appears to be adequate bandwidth capacity today will likely prove inadequate in the future. Broadband in this context refers to technologies such as DSL and Cable Internet. These technologies are considered “narrowband” in relation to Next Generation Internet technologies.
kbps is defined as 1,024 bits per second, whereas a KB (kilobyte) is 1,024 bytes
Mbps is defined as 1,024 Kilobits or 1,048,576 bits per second for one megabit per second