Rebtel Blog

With the sun finally shining in the UK, the holiday season is now well and truly upon us. And with Roaming charges back in the press over the weekend, I thought this might be a good time to remind people how to use Rebtel to avoid a nasty mobile phone bill on their return home.

Back in June the Commissioners in Brussels introduced ‘Roaming Caps’ and ordered mobile phone companies to cut overseas calling costs by 70%, giving them until the end of September to implement the changes. For too long, they ruled, have leisure and business travelers alike been unduly punished with roaming charges which they estimated to be a £3.7 billion annual rip-off.

Many Europeans have already begun to benefit from the new changes. German T-Mobile and Vodafone customers, for example have been able to opt into ‘Eurotariffs’, slashing the cost of calling mainland Europe. Indeed it seems that half of the mobile companies within the European Union have already activated the new maximum charges.

In the UK, however, most mobile operators will be introducing the new tariff at the end of August, which will be too late for most British holiday-makers. Only O2 is already offering the lower tariff and even then you have to ring and request it, or else face the normal high charges.

So in the meantime, here is how to use Rebtel to avoid getting burnt whilst you are away:

The best thing to do on arrival is to purchase a local SIM card. Doing so allows you to make and receive calls via a provider in the country of destination, rather that your normal domestic provider. There is a good list of foreign SIM providers for the UK listed here. Make sure to choose a SIM card with the cheapest rates for calling local numbers in the country where you buy it.

This will of course mean that you have a new phone number and people will not be able to reach you on your normal number. And this is where Rebtel comes in. One visit to the Rebtel website allows you to change your principal mobile number. Doing this will create a new set of local numbers for the contacts in your Rebtel address book, which you can then save into your handset as normal and call for the cost of a local call. The best bit is that Rebtel will automatically redirect calls from your existing Rebtel contacts to the new local SIM, meaning that you avoid paying for receiving international calls too.

So, to save yourself a small fortune this summer, get a local SIM and make a quick visit to the Rebtel website to update your principal number. And don’t forget to give people back a home who might be calling you whilst you are away a Rebtel number for you before you go.

Happy roaming.

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