Comment by __MatrixMan__

Yeah it's not ideal for sparse populations but I think you could get a lot of coverage by just running a node with a solar panel wherever your mailbox is and also having your mail driver put a node in their vehicle.

Really the thing I'm trying to push back against is the idea that the entire path between them must be connected all at once in order for two parties to communicate. If we design for short range, partition-tolerant, pocket-to-pocket background gossip, then that same protocol will work just fine if you attach specialty radio hardware and give it miles worth of range, and you've still got the fallback ready for cases where all you have is consumer grade hardware.

On the other hand, if you design for persistent connectivity and then try to use it in an intermittently-connected context, you're going to have a much worse time.