If I play with ideas, maybe some people could set up antennas, but that is a huge project for hobbyists. Maybe the minority faction in a country could fund this.
Running comms during war is dangerous but it has to be done. I think the people I have seen asking how to communicate when the government turns of networks understand the risks.
I could see capturing cell towers and replacing the network link with satellite to restore some network without controlling physical wires.
90M people. 118 hours of silence. One nation erased from the internet
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46603910
What we know about Iran's Internet shutdown https://blog.cloudflare.com/iran-protests-internet-shutdown/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46602066)
Among a number of other posts previously getting into it
behnamoh•3w ago