Types of Internet Access are

1. Narrowband

2. Midband
3. Broadband
4. VSAT ( Two Way Satellite)

1) Narrowband.

Analogue Dialup, Basic GSM and GPRS and basic ISDN (up to 2 channels) are officially Narrowband. This is typically 9.6Kbps to 128 Kbps. There are 1000kbps in 1Kbps. Not 1024, which is a Memory size multiplier. Thus speed in Mbps is 0.096Mbps to 0.128Mbps for Narrowband.

2) Midband.

These are all the services that are sometimes faster than Narrowband, but sometimes poorer than ISDN, but not Broadband.

Examples of Midband products are EDGE/3G/HSPA etc from Meteor, O2, Vodafone and Three. These all simply use Spare Mobile Phone Network capacity. They are not Broadband and never will be.

3G/HSDPA (based on W-CDMA Mobile phone system)

1. Not always on. It's a form of quick dialup, like ISDN is. It may not connect if the sector is full or the sector has shrunk (CDMA breathing).
2. Speed quoted is TOTAL peak for all users in a sector. It's not economic to build sectors for just one person. Total Cell throughput (according to Vendors) is 1Mbps to 2Mbps for a typically loaded sector. That is shared between users, so at an economic level of use the speed is under 150kbps. It can easily be 50kbps or simply not connect.
3. Latency is 80ms at best. Realistic latency is 120ms for a few users and rises to over 2000ms for a loaded sector.
4. Not a dedicated connection. Shared with phone traffic which has priority.

See http://www.radioway.info/comparewireless/CompareHSPAandFixed-v4.html for a comparison of why any Mobile system and 3G Phone HSPA in particular is worse than Fixed Wireless Broadband.

See also http://www.techtir.ie/comms/fixed-w...

Ripwave is similar but without phone traffic. It's S-CDMA**.

Mobile Masts can be up to 1.8Mbps, 3.6Mbps, 7.2Mbps, 14.4Mbps or 21Mbps. The so called 42Mbps HSPA+ actually is simply two "bonded" 5MHz "up to 21Mbps", channels, so purely marketing rather than real world. A 14.4Mbps sector can serve less than 5% area with that speed, and if only one user is connected. Average Throughput (According to Nokia & Ericsson) is about 2Mbps, shared among all the connections, thus with 10 connections the speed can be less than 200kbps, or even you may not connect.

"3 Ireland" aka Three , O2, Meteor particularly mis-sell their Mobile Midband Internet access as Broadband. It's not. Never will be. IBB/Imagine's Ripwave (Broadband in a Box) has also in the past been badly marketed. This "Nomadic" product is even poorer than Mobile Phone HSPA Internet. Imagine WiMax, the Ripwave replacement is unfortunately not Fixed WiMax but Mobile/Nomadic WiMax on an unsuitable band, 3600MHz. The 3600MHz (3.6GHz) is allocated for Fixed Wireless Access Broadband. The Imagine WiMax is however a Midband Product.

LTE and Mobile WiMax are over hyped. The 100Mbps is the peak sector speed and only applies for less than 5% area and one person connected. In real life many LTE and Mobile WiMax users will not get Broadband performance, though it's on average 4 to 8 times faster than HSPA average throughput if on 20MHz spectrum. In 5Mhz channels it's only twice as fast. 

The cap is typically 2GByte to 15Gbyte. There is no contention control other than cap.

3) Broadband

• Always On
• Minimum High Speed ( 512k, 768k, 1Mbps or 2Mbps depending on Authority/ Country)
• Low latency (< 80ms, typical is 10ms to 60ms)
• Dedicated IP connection.

Mobile is none of these.

Examples of Broadband can be

• Fixed Wireless, but not Mobile. (Why?). Performance depends on system and number of users.
• Cable (DOCSIS) shared with Cable TV. Performance depends on number of users sharing cable feed.
• DSL (ADSL, ADSL2+, SDSL, VDSL) ( Limitations). Performance depends on Distance, line quality and number of users (crosstalk) in a Multipair.

  See also http://www.techtir.ie/comms/dsl-limits

Typically contention is 50:1 or less.

Cap can be 15Gbyte to 240Gbyte or more depending on package.

4) VSAT (Two Way Satellite)

This can be always on. But package can be from 50kbps to 20Mbps depending on cost.
Contention can be to over  x2000 or worse depending on package cost.
Minimum latency is about 650ms (typically 800ms) due to the distance making it useless for gamers and awkward for voice.

Cap is often enforced per hour, day and week as well as per month because capacity is so poor. Cap is 2Gbyte to 20Gbyte depending on package.

References:

The Oireachtas 24th March 2004: Define broadband as a service that provides at least 512Kbs connectivity and set a target of the widespread availability of 5Mps connections by 2006 and with a further suggested target of 10Mps connections by 2008.
http://broadband.oireachtas.ie/Chapter02.htm
and
http://broadband.oireachtas.ie/Chairmans_Preface.htm

The ITU originally defined broadband as E1 or T1 or better (1.5Mbps minimum)

FCC: Broadband must have a MINIMUM speed of 768k http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-280909A2.doc

In 2010 FCC updated their spec to a minimum of  4Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream. see here also US NBS

OECD has 256kbps as minimum speed for Broadband.
http://www.oecd.org/document/46/0,3343,en_2649_34225_39575598_1_1_1_1,00.html

The European Commission in gathering statistics omits the description "Midband", gathering "Narrowband" and three categories of "always on Internet labelled as "Broadband":

1. 0.144 up to 2Mbps
2. 2Mbps up to 10Mbps
3. Over 10Mbps.

They gather statistics of Mobile and dedicated Modem Mobile Internet usage separately. The European Commission is not suggesting that 0.144Mbps to 2Mbps is acceptable "Broadband" but is simply using it as a lowest tier to count subscriptions.

(** Imagine are currently upgrading Ripwave (S-CDMA) to Mobile Wimax (OFDM based). Since it's still 3.5GHz Nomadic and indoors it will still be poorer for many people than real Broadband, similar speed off peak and about x4 better (200Kbps vs 50Kbps) on peak. Much lower latency, but no control over contention)