Oh, it's not better than normal wifi. It's just better than 1200 baud over VHF or even 300 baud over HF. It's just typical wifi hardware hooked up to high power amps and high gain antennas to get greater distance. People are adjust the frequencies to the ham band and then running mesh networks. Part 97 allows you to modify part 15 (normal wifi hardware) to put up to 10W out. 10W frequency hopping spread spectrum links can go pretty far at GHz frequencies.
That merely transforms my previous question into a question of why WiFi routers+adapters with discrete antennae, don't also ship with 10W output and a suitably-beefy electrical system to match.
