“rebtel 6 out of 31 non-american web 2.0 companies to watch” July 27th, 2007  

According to CNN that is, and we’re not contesting their opinion. We’re mighty pleased that we’re mentioned among such companies as Joost, Ohmynews and Bliin. And we can only concur with the rest of CNN’s write-up:

Rebtel is similar to Skype, only it doesn’t require customers to download special software or use a separate device for making phone calls. You provide them an international number, they provide you a local number. When you dial, Rebtel switches your call to the Internet, allowing for cheap international, mobile-to-mobile communications. Rebtel says users have opened “several hundred thousand accounts.”

What a great way to start the weekend!

Update: we were geographically mapped here. Many thanks to Erick Schonfeld

By: admin

Truphone, T-Mobile, Skype, and the Federal Communications Commission…. July 17th, 2007  

The US market is highly regulated when it comes to sending text messages to consumers. Due to the fact that users there pay for receiving SMS messages, to be able to send text messages from a service like Rebtel we’re required to go through a certification process by each mobile operator in the US.

This is great, as it protects users. But two of the largest operators are declining our application because we’re cannibalizing on their international call revenue. Yet another example of network operators abusing their dominance in the market preventing new entrants from bringing value and innovation to the customer.

However, it does look as though some small headway is being made. T-Mobile has just been ordered to stop blocking WiFi rival Truphone’s calls. Truphone, which routes calls via WiFi when handsets are within range of wireless hotspots, accused T-Mobile of abusing their dominant position in the market, and yesterday the High Court granted an intermin injunction, forcing T-mobile to connect calls made to Truphone numbers.

James Tagg, Truphone’s chief executive officer, says:

“The injunction is good news not only for Truphone but for every company trying to develop internet-era services and for every consumer wanting freedom of choice and lower prices. We are determined to bring better-value mobile calls, text messages and other innovative services to mobile phone users, and it’s right that we should not be prevented from doing so.”

Over in the US, meanwhile, Skype are petitioning the Federal Communications Commission (under the “Carterfone” rules) in an attempt to force US mobile operators to loosen controls on what kinds of hardware and software can be connected to their networks. If the rules of the upcoming Federal Communications Commission auction of 700MHz spectrum (probably due to take place in January 2008) are written in such a way as to encourage ‘open access’, the wireless market might finally be able to evolve into an open, thriving, innovative network, free from the stranglehold the mobile operators currently have on it. With Truphone’s case set to continue later this year, it looks like this winter might be an interesting one…

By: admin

iBlend July 12th, 2007  

Rebtel’s all in favour of disruptive forces in mobile telephony, but maybe this is taking things just a touch too far…

By: admin

Rebtel in the Independent July 11th, 2007  

Rebtel was mentioned in Rhodri Marsden’s Cyberclinic column in today’s Independent newspaper:

Distance should, at least in theory, be an irrelevance in today’s telephony market, a point stressed by Mat Goff at Rebtel. Their service offers the cute, inexpensive trick of assigning your friends abroad with a local British telephone number, which you store in your mobile phone – the service drastically reduces your bills. “If you call the USA a lot, and you want to do it from your mobile for 1p a minute,” says Matt, ” Rebtel is… well, almost stupidly useful.” These days, if claims sound too good to be true, it is worth investigating, regardless; innovations such as Rebtel’s will continue to spring up, and continue to change the way we make phone calls.

It’s always good to be described as an innovative, useful, inexpensive service. However it’s interesting to note that the article lumps Rebtel in with calling cards and web-based VoIP services. As mentioned in yesterday’s post on Rebtel + iPhone, what differentiates Rebtel from other services is that Rebtel changes the negative aspects of global calls – avoiding expensive operator charges and allowing you to talk internationally for the cost of a local call while retaining the postitive aspects of the mobile experience. With Rebtel, users don’t need to change the methods used to make a call – they dial direct from their mobile’s address book.

Once the user has set up their local numbers, dialling a Rebtel contact is exactly the same as making any other mobile-to-mobile call. No headsets, no browsers, no downloads, no need to dial two sets of numbers – just instant, low-cost, international calls on your mobile at the touch of a button.

By: admin

Rebtel + iPhone July 9th, 2007  

There’s been a lot of noise about VoIP providers such as Jajah and their ability to circumvent the iPhone’s marriage to AT&T via VoIP calling.

Yes, Jajah provides an alternative to expensive AT&T global calls, but their solution is less than elegant. With Jajah, every time you want to make a call, you need to use the iPhone’s browser to connect to the Jajah website, where you must manually enter the number you wish to call.

With Rebtel, that’s unnecessary. After all, 99% of mobile calls are made by one of two methods:

- Choosing a contact from the phone’s address book
- Entering a number onto the keypad

Rebtel lets you make international VoIP calls in exactly the same way as you normally do – from one phone to another, via your contact list, at the touch of a button.

On average, 80% of international minutes are spent calling the same five numbers. Unlike Jajah, which requires repeated visits to its website, Rebtel numbers can be set up during one quick visit to Rebtel.com. A two-minute visit to Rebtel’s site should be more than sufficient to enable the user to create local numbers for his or her international contacts.

After that, they need never visit www.rebtel.com again if they wish, as those numbers are permanent ones, and can be saved to the iPhone’s address book.

Rebtel users can then make international calls from the iPhone’s address book using their AT&T minutes as they do all other calls, but for a price matching Raketu or Jajah. They’ll also receive 10 minutes of free international calls when they first sign up, plus a 10 minute bonus the first time they credit their account.

Rebtel’s simple service can help you enjoy cheap international calls with your iPhone at the touch of a button.

See www.rebtel.com for more details, or watch this video to learn how to make Rebtel calls using only your inclusive minutes.

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By: admin

VOIP and community owned networks July 4th, 2007  

Hindsight is such a wonderful thing. While rummaging through a load of old files I came across a set of predictions, issued by wireless unleashed, as to possible business models for VOIP. It’s obvious that the VOIP market is getting crowded and that players operate from similar set of assumptions, leading to equally similar business models. The interesting bit in wireless unleashed’s four scenarios is the business models they describe. They mention four, each imaginatively named:

Telcotopia (the incumbent’s “official” future); Utilitiyability (the utilities industry uses its infrastructure to deliver connectivity); HeLLL with three L’s (lobbying, legislation and litigation ensures the stranglehold of the operators). The fourth scenario is mentioned almost as an afterthought: Community Owned networks. Wireless unleashed describes a situation analogous to how car ownership works:

Clearly, the customer/end-user/network owner would not need to acquire all skills necessary to build and run a network, any more than an automobile owner builds and fixes her own automobile. The construction and maintenance of the network could be outsourced to engineering and operation firms where it makes sense to do so; by analogy, we own our own car even though it is manufactured by a car builder and repaired by a mechanic when it breaks. But the customer-owner-end user would make the major decisions, finance the initiatives that affect the network, and contract for maintenance and upgrades.

They point out there could be other ownership models, for instance, one where groups of consumers own the network, as is happening now with groups of condominium owners who collectively own a fibre-optic network. But it is also conceivable that each end user is also an owner of the network. This is where the “fat” home network touches the “fat” internet backbone, by-passing the skinny “access” factor that now bars people from fully accessing services. Wireless unleashed sees a number of conditions that need to be fullfilled for Customer Owned Networks to be a viable alternative, and I think that now, in 2007, we can check off each of their conditions:

  • Access to the network must become easier to configure – check
  • Third party network construction companies must appear – check (but differently from how WU imagined it)
  • The regulatory climate determining right of way must improve – (check, but also differently from how WU imagined it)

The promise of mobile-voip communications, set up in a way so that WiFi access points can form an individuall owned “resource” to be shared collectively amongst a group of users brings the Customer Owned Network scenario within reach. Looking at it another way: customers who sniff wifi access point and then share them to provide a mobile VOIP infrastructure make the network customer built, not just customer owned. We now live in an era where more and more online networks are forming into large collectives of consumers. Content (even paid for content) is now collectively manufactured, marketed and sold. It is a matter of time before this collective intelligence spreads to the domain of the mobile operators. Wifi and VOIP enabled mobile hardware will open the door for this.

By: alexander drewniak

iPhone without service July 2nd, 2007  

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: VOIP handsets are the future of mobile telephony. At Rebtel we‘ve taken the first steps towards that future by enabling any user of any handset to start making VOIP calls using their inclusive minutes. Sadly Apple doesn’t seem to share that vision. Not only has VOIP been disabled on the iPhone, but the remarkable deal that Apple struck with AT&T to bring the iPhone to life is turning out to be very disappointing for the lucky few who managed to get hold of one…

Reports on the botched AT&T activation process for iPhone are now starting to flood in. The issue that turns the iPod into a veritable iBrick is that for the thing to work at all, it needs activation through its simcard with AT&T. That means that if you switched from, say, Verizon, to AT&T, you’re in line, just as you were in line for an iPhone. You now have this wonderful machine, but cannot do anything with it (yet) because you’re waiting for activation by AT&T!

Says “judpop” on the Apple support forum:

It could be worse, my iPhone won’t let me transfer my number from TMobile. It just says “The phone number you entered cannot be transferred. You must uncheck the transfer number option and clear the information in the text fields to continue.” Worse off, I want a good explanation for this, not some dinky you have to tell everyone you know what your new number is.. ugh… and yes i have triple checked all my info.

So with all the attention being on the hardware, it shouldn’t be overlooked, ever, that phones are solidified software and services. Why the iPhone’s functionality should be tied to activation through AT&T is beyond me. It’s probably an operator thing, as was the decision to disable VOIP on the iPhone. So iPhone buyers get a beautiful machine that’s horribly crippled by the stranglehold AT&T now seems to have on Apple. A shame, and harmful to Apple’s reputation as a challenger brand.

It’s also a good demonstration of how the telephony market works: handset manufacturers and operators are in the same bed, and that means that we, their customers, are being deprived of functionality that could be ours if only….

To my mind this is not a sustainable business model. As the growing controversy about iPhone activation shows, we, the customers, want to be set free.

Once VOIP handsets become available, users of mobile services will be able to band together and circumvent mobile protocols altogether. It’s only a matter of time before the first VOIP enabler hacks appear for the iPhone. In the meantime, the first step towards reclaiming at least some of the territory now occupied by the operators is to use their bucket plans to free ourselves from their outrageous pricing schemes. And for that, you know where to go…

By: alexander drewniak