To get decent coverage you need to negotiate and pay for space, power, and internet connectivity on thousands of towers&#x2F;tall buildings all owned by different people and municipalities who see you as somewhere between an annoyance and a revenue stream to exploit. Then you need a field workforce capable of performing maintenance at all of those sites (which requires making appointments and sometimes paying fees to the property owners), a supply chain of spare parts, and the RF expertise and test equipment to measure and do quality control on their coverage all around the cities you&#x27;re operating in.<p>Then you need a way to recoup all this cost.<p>Being a cell carrier takes staggering amounts of money and staggering amounts of schlep. It&#x27;s not for hobbyists, hackers, or small companies (who are not in fact carriers but just resell and rebrand real carriers&#x27; services). There is a reason it&#x27;s the domain of giant corporations run by the kind of people who make deals (and not write code) for a living.