Many of you are using the term "wi-fi" to mean "internet access." I can run our house wifi off my. cell phone - but by itself, it needs a connection to the internet. I have two options (my cellular and ATT via landline). We used to have satellite.
Anyway, it's very clear now from the above pictures that the Morphews clearly had satellites which must surely have been operating in order for anyone to make or receive calls, texts or use facebook. Wifi by itself merely links items in your own network - but does not actually connect with some sort of service provider to the internet.
So, my next question is what do people think about whether private satellite carriers would have the same records of in/outgoing calls/texts as a cellular service or a service like ATT?
You can also text all you want on FB Messenger, using wifi. Which is what I do.
But you must be hooked up to the internet somehow. We have wifi networks all over campus that only link printers to computers - none of it goes to the internet for security reasons.
Then, we have wifi that's on a T1 connection (direct connection to the local internet infrastructure shared by several utilities).
In my area, I can have "over the lines" (literally a cable coming down from a pole, which is what I have), cellular (which needs a cell tower nearby - that's not so good where I live) or satellite (which we had for a long time and worked well, but was ultimately too slow for me to teach from).
So, my wifi can stay up and link my phone to my watch or my computer to my phone - but without my connection to ATT (for which I pay 60US a month), I just have my own local wifi - I can only message my husband and the dogs, ha.
You must have a connection to the world wide web, somehow. It can be direct (not wifi) or through wifi, but wifi itself is not an ISP.