If the mesh routers were cheap enough it would just come down to making lots of them and distributing them all over your local area. As a result, they wouldn't

If the mesh routers were cheap enough it would just come down to making lots of them and distributing them all over your local area. As a result, they wouldn't need to be that powerful. Attaching them to balloons is somewhat optional. Perhaps even better, hand them out for free to neighbours that can plug them in as well. Linksys WRT54G from 2004-2005 used to be $60-70, and powerful enough to be flashed with better firmware. It's almost 10 years later (and sadly wrt54g has been heavily watered down). Perhaps we need a kickstarter to get cheap mesh network routers using 2004 tech, get costs down to $5/router somehow.