MUNI's shortcomings are visible during rush hour due to system collapse, and off-hours / on secondary routes due to missing runs or too-infrequent scheduling.
Moving around the most urban cores outside of rush hour, you typically won't see the worst of the warts.
Yeah, you have to remember that in pulse dial days a central office station had a reach of roughly 3 miles. The longer you go, the more you're paying for cable, repeaters, or just losing quality. 90 volt AC for ringing has a limited range!
Buuuuut.... not if you hijack the destination route. It helps if the DNS servers are hijacked, but if you also snag the destination route's IP then you can still get the certificate and serve traffic. Sneaky sneaky.
Moving around the most urban cores outside of rush hour, you typically won't see the worst of the warts.