The family could all get their amateur radio certification/license and communicate over great distances, for free, without any subscription fees, tracking, etc.

The family could all get their amateur radio certification/license and communicate over great distances, for free, without any subscription fees, tracking, etc. :) Sounds like I'm joking but honestly with the presence of repeaters everywhere around any metropolitan area, establishing communication would be trivially easy (especially with agreed-upon "time windows" during which to listen for each other and/or to check in).