Initial Post, Thought I would come over and check this out...

[DJRoss]

Originally Posted by JohnnyLingo

I recommend against being too friendly to me, as that will not earn you any popularity points here, but this part of your post intrigued me.

What about cell phone technology is different in Europe? And what about music? I was under the impression a lot of American music is popular over there... much more so than European music is here, at least.

Sweden has the third largest pop music industry in the world. For a country of only 10 million people it has almost surpassed Great Britain as the number two. The music there is much different, and having gotten used to it, I find myself much more comfortable listening to The Hives, Teddybears, Kent, etc than I do any of their US contemporaries.

Cell phone technology, I lived about a five minutes bike ride (yes we sold our car when we moved to Lund and rode bikes everywhere, even ten miles one way to church on Sundays. If the rain or snow was really bad during winter we would take the bus) from SonyEricsson's headquarters.

Sweden is 3 or more years ahead of the US in cell phone tech, implementation and where it really counts, network technology. Sweden has always been at the forefront of telephony. By 1885 they had more phones in Stockholm than in London, and the phone company was handling over 18 thousand calls a day.

My cell phone is over three years old, and before I left Sweden it was connected to the TRE (3G) network there and had video to video calling capabilities. If I wanted to see you face to face while talking I could over two years ago. Apples I-phone just launched a few months ago now is testing this technology.

The networks here are terrible, and the amount of wifi friendly areas are also still very limited. This really was a huge hurdle for me and my teenage boys. We got so used to being connected everywhere we were that it was a shock to come back to the states and feel like we entered a small time warp. My sons were laughing last year when they saw commercials advertising dial up on TV.

I was watching TV on my cell phone over two years ago. I was paying bills from my cell phone while on a buss. I could ACH transfer money from my account to any of my friends with the push of a few buttons even though I was out camping in the woods with my family.

I mean when I went to the BYU games last season, I had my phone with me and my hands free so I could listen to KSL on my old beat up phone while watching the game.

Just click on the links on SE's main site. Yes it is Swedish, but click around and see what isn't sold in this country. SonyEricsson Sweden