I'm pretty sure "viable" doesn't necessarily mean "viable in every locale on planet Earth" - New Mexico might be able to do it while Minnesota may not be able to - that doesn't mean the technology is a wholesale failure.
I'm also pretty sure that indiegogo isn't an ideal way to fund it, but otherwise, it likely wouldn't get funding due to entrenched interests, so I'm all for it.
but they demanded a copy of my id because my card was issued in another country than the one I live in at the moment.
You need to give them your name and address anyway for a credit card transaction, and you were being subject to fraud prevention. That's an excuse to pirate, not a reason.
That's just not true. AT&T's monopoly already existed when the government agreed to let them be a monopoly. The government was investigating them for antitrust violations, and then agreed to stop their investigation in exchange for them doing a few specific things, like requiring them to allow independent networks to connect to theirs in relatively limited circumstances.
Also, it was 1913, not the 30's, when this happened. Over the subsequent decades, the federal government basically gave AT&T everything they wanted - they approved 271 out of 274 buyouts of independent companies between 1921 and 1934, the government did not require them to interconnect their local services to independent local services, they did not require AT&T to interconnect with other long distance providers, and more.
That's the exact opposite of "heavy handed regulation" - that's the government rolling over to everything a corporation wanted.
"Money is the root of all money." -- the moving finger