Is that really broadband? A look at the technologies in play.

The National Broadband Plan has set ambitious goals for high-speed Internet connectivity across the country, and agencies, cities and other municipalities have hopped on the broadband bandwagon. But what exactly counts as broadband?

The Federal Communications Commission originally designated broadband as anything faster than 200 kilobits/sec, which basically meant anything that wasn't the old dial-up modem, then upgraded it to 768 kilobits/sec downstream and 200 kilobits/sec upstream. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration still considers 768 kilobits/sec to be broadband at the most basic level, but the FCC in 2010 set the bar for the national broadband plan at 4 megabits/sec downstream and 1 megabit/sec upstream. The range of available broadband technologies is still wide. Here’s is a rundown of the most common types of broadband, their range of transmission speeds and, to put it into context for the everyday user, an estimate of how long, on average, each technology would take to download a 1M book, 4M song and 6.14G movie, drawn from the trove of information available from NTIA's National Broadband Map.