This looks familiar.
This is Tesla tech. Signal transmission using a conductive solid waveguide, and the signal propagating through the surrounding space coupled to a surface wave. Tesla developed that, though using a different shape antenna (A horn, with the wire passing through the middle).
It doesn't look entirely practical. You'd have to fit the rather expensive equipment to the top of every single pole along the path, and a fault with even one of those devices would render all of the downstream network inaccessible.