But they're objectively inferior to the real internet and nobody uses them. People only use Meshtastic to say "hello, I'm using Meshtastic!"

A cool idea would be to build out an ISP to a small set of hub locations using leased lines or illegally placed fiber something, but that will get expensive.

I heard someone have an idea to use a drone to lay illegal fiber across city rooftops.

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iamnothere 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Hams do stuff like this all the time, as a hobby. But yes, most people won’t be that interested. The experience isn’t the same as regular internet (and that’s ok).

If you have line of sight, or can borrow a tower that does, you could always use point-to-point wireless or laser links to build a high bandwidth backbone. This would let you play LAN games if that makes it more interesting.

I concede that most people aren’t going to be interested in this. It is what it is.

	▲	inigyou 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I know there are some long-range licensed fixed radio links run by hackers here, and others that are using equipment that doesn't require a license (ISM band WiFi). A local hackerspace recently for some reason got a redundant internet connection via long range WiFi to a not so local data center, increasing total uplink from 1Gbps to 2.5Gbps. I'm not sure why they did that but it sounded cool.