The service is available in 30 countries and it works by people creating a Rebtel account at Rebtel.com, where they register their mobile phone number and the mobile phone number of their global friends and family. Rebtel then creates pairs of local numbers and SMSes them in a text message so that friends and family can then save the numbers in their address books.
These numbers can then be used to make cheap international calls. For example, a user in London gets a London number for calling a friend or family member in San Francisco. The person in San Francisco gets a San Francisco number for calling the friend in London.
The international calls are connected using VoIP. However, unlike most VoIP offerings, a computer is not needed. Instead, customers use their mobile phones to connect to the Rebtel network, which then routes the calls between 30 countries around the world.
The service costs $1 a week, but the charge is not applied if the service is not used. The fee gives customers access to two services: REBin and REBout.
The REBout service allows customers to use local numbers to make cheap international calls, paying only for the local call and a small per-minute fee to Rebtel.
However, it is the REBin service that will attract the most attention, mostly because it is totally free, other than the weekly $1 fee. A customer makes a call to his or her international friend. The local call is connected with their international friend’s local call in a virtual room called a REBroom. To get to the REBroom, instead of answering their friend’s local number, the recipient hangs up, and while the friend hangs on, the user calls the friend’s local number and the two calls are automatically connected. They can then speak for as long as they want, without any charges.
The service will appeal to consumers who are demanding cheaper international calls, but some will argue that Rebtel’s offering is overly complex and will not be understood by non-technically-minded people.
