Awesome! They could easily offer tracking of letters or just notifying sender when letter was delivered or innovate even more on top of that.

Here's a little more info: http://www.thelocal.se/32436/20110307/

According to The Local's article, a system like this is already in place in Germany, and will launch in Denmark in April. It might be available in Sweden some time this year [see http://www.gp.se/nyheter/sverige/1.566988-sms-kan-ersatta-fr...].

Just what we need: more services to depend on the already-obsolete SMS. From the standpoint of a gov't agency, that decision makes a lot of sense, but just further illustrates to me how badly we need to transition to messaging protocols like XMPP that are designed for use in the modern world.

Still more efficient, and environmentally friendlier, than traditional stamps.

Oh, definitely. It's also a bit of a wasted opportunity in some ways, as it becomes harder to retire SMS with each service built on top of it.

Well there is no reason the service has to rely on SMS. In this case it does, but in the future there does not be a lock in right?

It is important to understand why this innovation did not happen in the U.S.

In Europe, the old national postal systems have to compete for customers, thanks to EU deregulation.

In the U.S., where the postal service regular mail is a monopoly, it is not in the postal service's interest to innovate and offer new services-- they make money from people buying, storing, and never using physical stamps.