Jeff Pulver makes a rallying cry for help around the subject of Emergency Response Using IP Based technology.
This is very timely as I'm trying to convince the City of Solana Beach to go WiFi or WiMax with a WiFi downlink throughout the town to improve public safety and public works communications, as a member of one of the city commissions.
One of my points is that as IP technology advances is that cities will be able to keep their work forces and managers in the field more, resulting in faster communications and better face to face dealings with the public.
Certainly VoIP will be a large part of this type of thing in the future.