Argentina's peculiar coin shortage

For well over a year now, small change has been hard to come by there. Stores hang “No Coins” signs in their windows, and offer candies instead of change. Taxi-drivers round up—or down—to avoid giving up precious coins, while smaller merchants sometimes turn away business if you have only bills to offer them. The government has fined banks thousands of pesos for refusing to hand over coins, and, in October, the city’s subways became temporarily free when the booths ran short of change. For the average Bonaerense, everyday transactions now entail a complicated calculation of where coins can be acquired and when they will be needed.

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Tata Docomo's launch

Tata Docomo's GSM service is being launched in a very Web 2.0 way, with a Twitter page ,Youtube Channel , and a very 'social' website with user comments, page ratings, share links for facebook etc. I see a very strong brand in the making - one that could challenge Vodafone. The pricing innovation of having a 1 second pulse rate is also a first. Of course, the actual network coverage and customer service will be the final decider, but all the preceding steps have been executed quite well.

Incidentally, Docomo has a strong R&D focus in Japan, which makes it the only player that is creating new technologies as opposed to just using existing ones. That's a fantastic source of long term competitive advantage in the face of 'commoditization' of telephony.