No internet required… In this video, I build a public Reticulum node and test whether it can bridge completely different networks into one encrypted communication path. I send messages from a normal phone over LTE, through the internet and Starlink, then off-grid over LoRa—eventually using a $20 drone-mounted relay to reach a phone with no internet connection at all.
It doesn’t take much of a leap of imagination to see a torrent-like system utilizing all available devices within earshot to spread the bandwidth around to realize a pretty fast system available nearly everywhere in dense urban areas and slower (but ubiquitous) coverage the more rural you get. Obviously we’re far away from that now, but this definitely seems like the future to me.