I'm afraid that it is not so simple to circumvent a purposeful shutdown. Consider a government mandated plug-pull would be essentially a multi-faceted attack, consisting of both hardware and software. You might have a chance at keeping a few independent local nodes up, but the majority of the system would be hacked down via software or the hardline backbone would just be turned off or the rf spectrum would saturate. I really don't want to sound like a conspiracy nut, but I have put my hands in the government network once already, and from my experience, if they really want to pull the plug, I have no doubt they can pull it off.

It might not really be skynet, but NSA ain't too far off the mark.