Deals like the Philadelphia tie-in with Earthlink, and San Francisco's pending WiFi concession, leave me asking a tough question.

Are these deals really necessary?

My friend Glenn Fleishman points out that a city concession dramatically cuts the cost of a WiFi cloud. The "winning" company has the right to use city streets, utility poles, and city owned land. They have a big leg-up in the market. (That's Glenn, left, with his son Ben, now 14 months according to his blog. My own son John is now 14 YEARS old, and I was feeling nostalgic.)

But are these benefits truly necessary?

Would the lack of a concession double a company's costs? Triple them? I don't know. But I believe, given the recent advances in Wi-Max technology, they're not determinative.

Should Earthlink prove "successful" in Philadelphia, in other words, there is nothing to prvent Verizon from creating its own, competing cloud. There is nothing to prevent a competitive fiber company, such as Level 3, with installing a collection of WiMax base stations in any city where it does business and offering WiFi backhaul to whoever wants it.

My point is, simply, that you not ignore Moore's Law. Today's WiFi revolution is just one step down a long road. The 802.11b service we thought incredible a few years ago, at 10 Mbps, has now been supplanted by 802.11n, which runs at 10 times the speed. The FCC regulations that govern the spectrum allow anyone to use them, for any purpose, so long as they stay within designated power limits. Imagine what might happen if those frequency bands were expanded, not just by the U.S. but by any country, by Tonga or Mexico? Imagine what might be possible?

Now, stop imagining.

What I call Moore's Law of Radios still applies. There is no shortage of spectrum. And there is no way to prevent competition in the wireless space.