In northern Nevada, every now and then my phone will briefly connect with a 3G network, the connection last one or two minutes at most.
The only thing I can think is it was put in place by the bureau of land management, the department of transportation or the forest service, it was set up with or eventually had solar panels installed to charge the batteries
Why is it still operating? I think it was either forgotten about or it's some back up plan. Personally I think it was forgotten about or it was put up on some mountain top and people didn't want to go remove it.
The connection is sporadic, you most certainly won't be streaming Netflix