A gentleman from Wales in the UK has gone to astonishing lengths to get a decent broadband speed. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-mid-wales-40745533
Broadband speed is dependent on your ISP's backend. A modem capable of supporting higher throughput speed may not use all its potential if the ISP backbone doesn't push through the higher speed.
The problem is, there is no industry standard definition for "broadband" as it applies to Internet access. In reality, it is just a marketing term that came out of the 1990s for Internet access that was faster than dialup! And that was generally limit to 56 Kbps. So his 500Kbps was nearly 10 times that amount.
The FCC tried to set a standard defining broadband in the US. https://www.theverge.com/2015/1/29/7932653/fcc-changed-definition-broadband-25mbps Money is the name of the game however.
