Yes and yes. In the US, 900-930MHz (nominally the 915MHz band) is available for use with no license required so encryption is fine (similar to your 2.4GHz or 5GHz wifi access point).
People interested in LoRa may also be interested in 802.11ah, or Wifi HaLOW
I have seen low power meshtastic devices serving things like BBSes on solar power, I’m not familiar enough with 802.11ah devices to know if solar would be feasible.
The Meshtastic firmware actually has an 'Is Licensed' [0] checkbox if you want to operate with both the privileges and restrictions of operating under that license.
The major upside is transmit power and the downside is not being able to use encryption.
I would also note that I have never once heard of enforcement on using encryption but we -have- seen enforcement of using too much transmit power without a license.
So if you like, get a license, crank transmit power, then use encryption all you want and don't worry about it.
It will be enforced about as fast as movie torrenting.
LoRa is surely mostly for machine to machine, Internet Of Things. There are lots of web pages that take it for granted that encrypted communications are not merely allowed but expected.
