Have you heard of the VolkFi One Phone? The phone and the company claim it does not need a network carrier to use the phones. How does it work?

It uses a mesh network style connection between devices. The interesting part is that these operate on a lower radio frequency band of 915mhz which is able to transmit at distances over 2 miles. You only need to be within approximately two miles of the nearest VolkFi phone or gateway (they ship these for free to all users).

Each phone can establish multiple connections to other phones and gateways. Your internet traffic is routed the most efficient path through the other VolkFi devices to get to its the destination and then back to you.

Basically, each phone is also its own cell tower and they can all work together in a large cloud mesh to provide access in even the most remote areas. It's a crowdsourced internet infrastructure. Since VolkFi doesn't need to operate any towers or ISP's their costs are only producing the hardware which you do pay for. Once you buy the phone they have made their profit and you have your key to a free and community supported internet.

One thing you do still need, or at least someone in the VolkFi community will need is their own home internet connection. This is what serves as the gateway to the outside world. In theory, if everyone used the LoRa modules and did a mesh network we wouldn't need ISP's the internet would be re-invented and everyone would be their own ISP.