China joins the Rebtel family December 21st, 2007  

Rebtel is turning on service today in Shanghai.  We’re super thrilled to welcome China to the Retel family of countries where residents can make free international calls.

Opening this market has been in the works for a long time.  It’s one of the toughest markets to get into.  So we’re very proud to be the first to give people in Shanghai local numbers they can use to ring friends anywhere in the world.

This local number service that Rebtel invented is what gives the 24 million residents of Shanghai a choice to either make super low-cost calls to any phone, anwhere in the world, or make free international calls to friends, family or work colleagues living in one of the other 39 Rebtel countries.

When we started Rebtel last year some influential bloggers were skeptical that the Rebtel service would take off.  They said that asking your friend to hang up and call back on their local number for you while you stayed on the line, was too complex.

Well guess what?  Thousands upon thousands of people do it regularly.  And, many more thousands are signing up every week to give it a try.  Clearly we’re doing something right because not only is the number of Rebtel subscribers growing steadily, our users, on average, make at least three Rebtel calls per week, and their calls are getting longer and longer, meaning our minutes, too, are on a very steady growth path week-over-week.

But I digress.  Back to China and low-cost calls.

Rebtel calls from Shanghai to the U.S. cost just $0.018 per minute; $0.019 per minute from the U.S. to Shanghai.  None of the VoIP services beat that, but even their prices are better than AT&T, which charges $3.50 per minute to call a mobile phone in the China from a mobile phone in the U.S.

Rebtel calls from Shanghai to U.K. landlines cost $0.019 per minute, and $0.018 per minute to U.K. mobile phones.  Using Rebtel to call Shanghai from London is the same as from the U.S.: $0.019 per minute.  Again — Rebtel is the low-price leader among internet calling services.  And Vodafone doesn’t come close, with $3.33 per minute to call Shanghai from the U.K.

Shanghai is just the start.  We plan to expand Rebtel service to the rest of China in the New Year.  So, stand by.  We’ll keep you posted.

In the mean time — happy calling.  All of us at Rebtel wish you the happiest of holidays.  To our cusomers: Thank you!  It’s been a terrific year.  May 2008 bring everyone happiness and good fortune.  But most of all may it bring peace and freedom on earth for all.

By: alexander drewniak

Make the world a better place December 17th, 2007  

If you’re one of those holiday shoppers who subscribe to the something-for-them-something-for-me philosophy, then look no further than Rebtel.  

Today we’re kicking off our holiday campaign, enabling new Rebtel customers to receive $2.00 from Rebtel for every $1.00 they put into their account through the end of the year.  

Then we give our new customers a choice:  They can donate the money to either UNICEF or Amnesty International.  They can give the funds to a friend, family member or work colleague so they can make super low-cost international calls using Rebtel.  Or, they can keep our gift in their account to make more calls.

The campaign begins today and runs until January 1st, 2008.  Only first payments of up to $10.00 qualify for the program.

Non-paying Rebtel users – people who have previously registered and have been using Rebtel’s Smart Call service for making free global calls, or who joined Rebtel only to get a free 10 minute international call, but have never made a payment to Rebtel – may also participate.  We’re always looking for ways to help our users do good in the world.  That’s why we started Rebtel.  And we hope you’ll take us up on our offer.Happy holidays.

By: alexander drewniak

Verizon: Time to walk the walk December 5th, 2007  

Skeptical?  You bet!  But we’re in good company.

Verizon is talking openness out of one side of its mouth while the other side is shutting down Rebtel’s application for a harmless short code campaign that would allow customers to set up new local numbers for global contacts with one quick SMS. 

Verizon has been putting on the PR push to position itself as all open and friendly just in time for the January auction of the “C-Block” of 700MHz radio spectrum.   

It’s a good story. In a recent BusinessWeek interview, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam announced that as part of Verizon’s new “any app, any device” future, his company would support Android, Google’s open mobile operating system.  He goes on to say that this change is far from a sudden course correction — that he’s been trying to figure out how to make Verizon open for a year.  Yet it was only just a couple of months ago that Rebtel’s application for a short code campaign was summarily dismissed.

Short codes are those five-digit numbers that connect you to someone or something instead of dialing an entire phone number.  You may have used a short code to vote for your favorite American Idol, for example.  Rebtel wants these short codes to give customers a fast and easy way to create new local numbers for calling abroad instead of having to first dial a Rebtel operator or use the Rebtel web site.  

But to get short codes you have to apply to each carrier for a campaign, which Rebtel did through its U.S. service provider. 

Sprint said, yes.  AT&T said it might approve our campaign, but only with a bunch of changes, which we’re working on.  And Verizon, Alltel and T-Mobil all said, no. 

According to Adam Liptalk’s story in the New York Times, experts say private companies like Verizon probably have the legal right to decide which messages to carry — that the laws forbidding carriers from interfering with voice transmissions on ordinary phone lines do not apply to text messages. 

Rebtel, however, believes this is a Net Neutrality issue – whether carriers or Internet service providers should have a voice in the content they deliver to customers. And, in our opinion, the Verizon rejection of Rebtel’s short code campaign is nothing short of an anti-competitive abuse of power, much like their rejection of Nara Pro-Choice America’s short code campaign was interference with political speech and activism. 

Just like with Nara, we want Verizon to reverse its decision on Rebtel.  Why can everyone from Burger King to Barak Obama use short codes but not Rebtel customers?

And, given his opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, I would think Walt Mossberg should be a loud supporter of this cause. 

Regardless, talking the talk is all well and good, but if Verizon really believes in openness we think it’s high time it walks the walk, too.  

By: alexander drewniak