We had a laser link to the university 20 years ago. 10MBit/s for 300 people.

That thing was awful.. lol.

The link was dead during

- Heavy rain

- Fog in the early morning

- While snowing for days

- Pigeons building a nest within the optics

There are many long-range WiFi solutions. I wonder how these would have performed as alternatives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-range_Wi-Fi

Nowadays you just can buy pair of cheap Mikrotik oder Ubiquiti directional dishes.

Back then this was rocket science.

Google "pringles cantenna" to get an idea of what state-of-the-art long range wi-fi gear was like in 2005...

Yes, these were Yagi antennas.

EBay has many models.