Along similar lines as
JAJAH,
REBTEL harnesses the power of VoIP to make international calling cheap, and it doesn't even require a funny-looking headset. It has a base rate of $1 per week, and you aren't charged for weeks when you don't use the service. After that, there are two kinds of service, REBout and REBin: REBout gives you a local number to call a friend for a small per-minute fee (e.g. calls to France cost $0.02/minute for land lines or $0.20 for mobile numbers), with the first 30 seconds free. REBin is free (apart from the $1/week) but a little more complicated--you make a REBin call by entering your number and your friend's on the REBTEL web site, calling your friend on the number it gives you, and then having them hang up and call you back at the number provided to them. You can try REBin for free on the REBTEL web site. Personally I prefer JAJAH's method because it does the dialing for you, but if you spend a lot of time on international calls, Rebtel's flat rate combined with REBin is cheaper in the long run. I did a test call (albeit with someone sitting in the same room as me) and there was a noticeable delay, but nothing intolerable.
Tags: cheap, international, jajah, phone, rebtel, voip
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Comments
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Subscribe to commentsTextbook CaseJul 15th 2006 5:51AM
Interesting process, but unless you are absolutely, completely, flat-ass broke, there is zero reason to jump through that many hoops to call anywhere, and then put up with delay for your trouble.
Using any number of calling cards, you can call directly to your friend in France, for under $0.02/min or cells under $0.10/min (Nobelcom). You make, and they receive, just the one call, and you don't need to use a website to set up, you don't have a time-delay making the conversation-- usually with a non-native speaker on one end or the other-- that much more complicated, and most importantly, you don't have to wonder why they capitalize REB sometimes.
I'll admit the REBin service is novel, and the website looks the part. The 'Beta' logo is the first thing to show up, they use Arial Round extensively, and nice Skypy colors, but those REBout rates are terrible.
"We don’t think that it’s okay to overcharge for international mobile phone calls." That's good news, I was concerned for a second when the France mobile rates were twice the market rate, I'll look forward to the cuts.