Not so much a standard as in “everyone should actually use the internet at this speed” but more as in “the bare minimum level, everyone should have at least this speed available (and we’ll help pay to upgrade people stuck at slower speeds)”, I believe.

It was still a low speed for that of course. It apparently hadn’t been raised since the Obama administration (2015).

Rural internet speeds are often… not comparable to more densely populated areas, shall we say. My (European) perspective: I had about ~3 Mbit down (over ADSL) until I moved about a decade ago (on a good day, while paying for “up to 40 Mbit” (IIRC) that the line apparently just could not physically deliver to my house). Meanwhile, 1 km along the road people in town had cable internet (~100 Mbit down).

Luckily, both populations have since benefited from a fiber rollout by a smaller telco, but people in town still got that upgrade about 5 years sooner and without paying a ~€2k connection fee. AFAIK there are still areas in my country where ADSL is the best available…