Not really. The same economic and spectrum constraints apply. By the time you've extended the Wi-Fi PHY and built out a network to cover most of a city you've effectively reinvented LTE.
Single Indian Telecom (Airtel) paid ~ 2 Billion USD(current price) in 2016 for 173.8 Mhz spectrum across 1800/2100/2300 Mhz bands. Where as small YC startup(Link in my parent comment) has created Bangalore city wide WiFi Internet(2.4 Ghz/ 5 GHz has been made unregulated and free).
So, definitely telecom spectrum cannot be called same as WiFi as one requires Billion dollar oligarchy to enter the space and the latter can be entered with 4 member startup team.
