I'm excited for the possibility that wifi will be able to serve a much larger area, perhaps 100-1000 times the area of current wifi points. I've been trying to figure out how to make micro-ISP businesses super convenient (just buy a router, set it up, and get paid) -- this might just be what that idea needs to get started. Maybe we can simultaneously disrupt the major cellphone providers and the major ISPs... wifi everywhere!
A few years ago I was in Athens and some tech guys introduced me to the idea of wireless community networks. I was amazed at what a few people had achieved with just directional antennas and a few ADSL lines, back when broadband was almost non-existant in Greece. They called it the Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens_Wireless_Metropolitan_Ne...
Today they have 1120 backbone nodes, 2900 client nodes and another 9000+ people that have expressed interest in joining the network.
The article is a little bit misleading. Serving a larger area and serving more people are actually conflicting goals. The latter is always more important in urban area.
