Cell phone OSes automatically disconnect from these of course, there's no way to connect to the ad/telemetry services so what good would it be anyway?
Not all phone OSes. None of my iOS devices disconnect from local WiFi because they don't have Internet connectivity. I do this this all the time with several devices I have that broadcast their own WiFi for remote control connectivity.
Not to mention that there is huge mesh networks around the world deployed by private persons, all using WiFi over KMs of distance.
There is also this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25412367 which was recently discussed on HN.
- Freifunk - Germany - https://freifunk.net/
- Guifi - Spain - https://guifi.net/en
Guifi is probably the largest of those, with 36.924 online nodes, most in Spain but some in other parts of the world. If my memory serves me correctly, there is peering working/in progress between Freifunk and Guifi as well.