If your service provider supports cell broadcasting and provides you with access to a cell broadcasting channel, you can receive broadcast messages from the wireless network. These SMS messages can communicate information about weather, sports, traffic, or other news directly to your device. Contact your service provider for more information about cell broadcasting.
The cell broadcast channels that you subscribe to determine the kind of cell broadcast messages that you receive. Contact your service provider for more information.
Amber Alert is one example of this. I heard that Cingular was working on this but there is not market for this. I heard that FEd govt could use this in case of emergency to communicate with multiple agencies.