"Save the world"? Seriously?

The key paragraph:

    A full‐power base station with software costs around 
    $10,000. Compare that to the typical $50,000 - $100,000 
    investment for base station controllers, mobile 
    switching centers and "a whole lot of plumbing" to 
    bring in power, backhaul, etc., in a traditional 
    cellular network. 

So it's a base station that's a fifth as expensive as a regular base station.

And since there's no BoM, we don't know if that ten thousand dollar number includes solar panels to power the thing, or wireless backhaul to network the base stations together.

Don't forget that it runs on licensed frequencies, so you have to pay your local radio licensing agency to use it. It's not like a wifi router, which you can just buy and turn it on out of the box. It doesn't matter if it's open source if you can't use it without breaking the law.

Really, the only amazing thing here is how they got Network World to run such a blatant puff piece about such a fundamentally unexciting product.