I think our neighboorhood is about 130 houses. probably not enough to make it cost effective.
On the flip side, maybe starting a local company to provide LOS microwave hookups to the various neighborhoods in the area could make it work.
You can rent space on a nearby cell tower for a pricy-but-not-insane monthly fee, and they'll usually have decent backhaul already present. (American Tower had a WISP sales program specifically for this at one point, I'm not sure if they still do). Run point-to-point from there to your neighborhood via some microwave WISP gear.
If you had a volunteer from the HOA willing to setup and manage it (a bigger ask than it sounds like), and if all 130 houses would agree to pay $50/month, then the math would work out OK (at least, using pricing I got in suburban Michigan about 4 years ago).
Most cell towers are owned by a third party (not a big telco), and they'll lease to anyone if you have the cash, and the site has the capacity (physical space, weight/wind requirements, etc). You can lease from American Tower, Crown Castle, SBA, etc.
The existing backhaul is often owned by existing monopoly telecom providers. But not always. And competitive non-big-telco commercial operators will often install service to a site for you, if you are willing to pay for it. For example, I'm looking at a cell site in Michigan right now, that's deep in AT&T territory, but Sprint fiber is actually the installed backhaul provider, and four other commercial providers will install service there for a price.
You can know all of this upfront, before you sign anything, so there's very little risk in terms of tower space or backhaul availability. People have been doing this for decades now, it's not as ill-defined as it might seem.
You don't have to convince them, let the FCC do that. I lived in an area with a heavy handed HOA. The only decent broadband was a WISP. They had a few go rounds with the HOA, but they can't regulate antennas. In the end the WISP put a tower on my roof - I never heard a word. They may try, but they don't have authority to regulate it.
That's a little bit of an overstatement. HOAs can regulate antennas unless the FCC (or Congress) makes an exception.
In the case of WISP, there is an exception that applies: 47 CFR 1.4000 [1]. WISPs would fall under the exception for antennas for "fixed wireless signals". A "fixed wireless signal" is "any commercial non-broadcast communications signals transmitted via wireless technology to and/or from a fixed customer location".
There are lots of local groups doing this around the country already in underserved areas as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B0u6nvcTsI
Contrary to the claims made if one is to remove municipal blocks fiber is very easy and very cheap to install. What makes fiber installation expensive is municipal regulations
I wonder if the onion network will counteract this.
How, exactly?
I'm pretty lost too.
Can't remember the name.