Call it a BEAD hangover, which some did, but at this year’s Mountain Connect conference , the broadband industry was noticeably different from last year.

The gathering was still hosted at the Sheraton in downtown Denver. And there was still plenty of buzz for the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program , aka BEAD, the federal government’s $42.5 billion investment to give every state enough funding to get every last American household high-speed internet once and for all.

But enthusiasm for BEAD had turned into exasperation. The program was upended June 6, after more than three years of strategizing and work completed by many states. The Trump administration changed the rules, saying it wanted to cut down on possible waste of taxpayer money, and set a 90-day deadline to redo e

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