There were (maybe still are) tons of such mesh networks run by small commercial operators in Germany's rural areas, usually using directional radio to create connections between villages and then meshing all the wifi consumer routers to span wifi over the village. They did that/do that because the major commercial providers (i.e. Telekom) weren't exactly fast laying fiber to these villages. A buddy of mine used to ru…
There was (might still be but I haven't looked since fiber went everywhere where I live) a local provider to me that use microwave links, it was at the time fast as hell compared to creaking ADSL but every time it rained it went south fast, I worked in a shared office building that used it for it's main links and it was a constant thorn in my side, I used to check the rainfall forecast to see if I'd have decent internet at the office!.