I should have added that all of my foregoing will come about because to the leftists they never want a crisis to go to waste. If there is a natural disaster or impact on communications they will truncate the net to silence dissent.
Oil Rig blows out? Let the oil company muck around with abatement while they are completely mired down with stopping the well and thereby convienintly create a bigger crisis to use to shut down drilling.
There is also the fact that most people are not going to go out a purchase and learn to use a ham radio. I had an FCC first class license at one time (job) and family years ago had a ham radio but I am out of date now. How much does a set up cost, starting from scratch?