The government promotes this Baltic nation as E-stonia, and it has a point

There is e-banking: Nearly half of all bank customers in Estonia avoid trips to the teller by managing their money online. There is e-government: Cabinet meetings are almost paperless, with each minister following the agenda on a flat-screen monitor. And there is e-commerce: Ordinary citizens can use mobile phones to pay for parking or a bouquet of flowers, or to transfer money to a friend. Only 14 years ago, the "E" in Estonia could have stood for East Bloc. Visitors here today can still spot signs of the country's Soviet past in the Communist-style apartment complexes, some of them abandoned and falling apart, and a sprinkling of old Russian cars. But Estonia is hoping that by becoming a laboratory of innovative technology projects, it can erase the legacy of its Communist past. It is off to a good start. Software well-known elsewhere is written here. Both Kazaa, the file-swapping program that allows users to download music, games or other files, and Skype, the Internet phone service, were developed by a group of programmers in Estonia under the guidance of Niklas Zennstrom, a Swedish entrepreneur. "There are definitely a lot of programming projects going on," said Jaan Tallinn, a senior developer for Skype. Low cost is a factor. Tallinn estimates that programmers in Estonia make an average of E1,000 to E1,300 a month, about $1,225 to $1,600. But wage levels are not the only attraction of Estonia's programmers. Zennstrom was recently quoted as saying that "in terms of technical expertise, I have never found anywhere better." Among Estonia's innovations is its parking system. About 25,000 people use their mobile phones to pay for parking, said Tonu Grunberg, executive vice president of EMT, Estonia's largest mobile phone company. A user sends a text message to the phone number of the parking authority, and the fee is added to his or her phone bill. The system was invented here, and EMT is now seeking to export it. The technology department at Eesti Uhispank, the country's second-largest bank, has taken mobile technology one step further. The bank allows customers to transfer money to each other with their mobile phones, a service intended partly to allow plumbers or electricians to collect fees directly from customers. The service began this year, and 30,000 people have signed up to use it. Estonia, with 65 mobile phone subscriptions per 100 people, according to the International Telecommunication Union, has a similar mobile phone penetration to France (69) but is well behind its northern neighbor, Finland (90), yet well ahead of Russia (12). Government ministers and technology experts in Estonia offer a range of explanations as to why a Baltic country with a population of about 1.3 million has so quickly adopted computing and mobile communications projects.