Rebtel Takes The Price Lead – By a Mile November 20th, 2008  

Hey there Annabella,

Thanks for taking the time to write a comment.

You and your son can easily use Rebtel as it works from landline phones as well as mobiles.

He can simply register for an account with his landline number, add you as a contact and call the local french number that we generate to reach you.

I should also add that as France is a Rebtel country (judging by your name I assume that you might reside in UK or US). If that is the case, you can make international calls for free and not pay anything to Rebtel.

When your son calls you, you will see a local US or UK number on your display. You simply pick up, tell your son that you will call him back, hang up and call the local number displayed on your phone. This is called a Smart Call and as I mentioned, by making Smart Calls, you don't have to pay anything to Rebtel.

Thanks Annabella and best wishes to you and your son.

/Alex

My son will be leaving Friday to Study in France for the fall semester. He will have a dorm room phone. How can we use Rebtel?

Hardik,

We will certainly have a look at your account.

Please drop our Customer Team a note on customerteam@rebtel.com with a brief description of the issue.

Thanks!

Hi Alxander,
Thanks for your reply,
Well I dont know about this offer you mentioned as I have recharged with 25 $ only but yet my calling rate to india is 2.9 cents only And account balance I got is 25$ only ( NO EXTRA 10$), so please let me know abt this offer and how can I contact you to reduce my call rate to india. As out of 25 $ I have used 6 $ and still I have 19$ in my account , so if is there any offer like call rate of 2 cents/min please make sure it gets effective to my account.

My cellphone is registered with my email hardikpt@yahoo.com . please do the needful and let me know if I can do to reduce my rate online.

Waiting for your reply,
Hardik

Hardik,

Thanks for your comment.

There are two variations of the Rebtel offer you mention. Either you make a smaller payment of $10 to make your effective call rate to India 2.45 cents/min.

Or, if you are a heavy caller you can consider making a payment o f$25 to receive the extra $10 in your account, making the effective rate to India 2 cents/min.

HI,
I started using rebtel as it was cheap compare to others and I think its good also but in between I found some cheaper like onetouchindia (120 free mins for refering for friends) so I stopped using rebtel. Last week I saw there is good scheme in rebtel 2.9 cent/min to india means aronud 865 min for 25$, And I reacharged. Very next day of recharge I came to know mother india card provides 1000+250 bonus mins in just 20$. And I feel like I should have waited for one more day ..

Any way network is good except sometimes it gives trouble as it gets DC automatically. Then I have to callback again.
I hope u can look at the website www.motherindiacard.com and compare ur rate with them rather than stanacard or any other

I'm sorry about that. Didn't realize that you were referring to the table in the post above.

* $3.99 refers to the column for the Verizon prices. Verizon charges a fee of $3.99 per month and that's why it's in there.

As I mentioned before, trying out the Rebtel service is completely free of cost :)

Thanks Marian and let me know if you have any other questions that I can help you out with. My email is alexander.drewniak@rebtel.com in case you would like to use that instead.

Thank you Alex: I am understanding much better and will weigh out the cost factors of having to purchase foreign sim cards to make this work. After I have made a decision I will blog back what I came up with and why I chose the route I took. This may help your company as well as those like me who are having a hard time deciding what to do. OK..... The $3.99 question. If you look at the chart above giving the rates of calls, you should notice at the very bottom in small italic letters the *plus $3.99 per month. Explain this as I must be not understanding this. As always, thank you again. Marian

1.Before I leave the states I join up.

Yes.

2. I have anyone that I intend to call when away from the US to join up also thus paying $3.99 each which they do via internet.

Well, we would appreciate that but it's not necessary for both of you to join. Although, if your husbands wants to call you occasionally, he should join as well. But, in order for you to call him there's in no need for both of you to become Rebtel users.
I'm not sure where the figure $3.99 comes from but to sign up and try Rebtel out is completely free of cost.

3. I add them to my contacts list. Now, when I am in these different countries, do I have to get on the internet and get new no.s for them so that they are a local call from that country?

Yes. Simply log in to your Rebtel account , add your number number to your account and make it preferred under the settings menu, update your contact you wish to call and dial away :)

4. When purchasing the {foriegn) SIM card, does it contain a certain amount of minutes requiring me to try to figure out how many minutes I will be using it in that country?

When you purchase a foreign SIM card you usually get to decide how much credit you wish to charge it with. The actual amount of minutes you will be able to extract is a difficult question for me to answer but as we are talking about a local call, It's not much.

5. OK, so I am at my hotel and want to use the phone in my room. Do I have to get a number for that room and also the rooms of my family that are in other parts of the hotel? (I will not be taking my lap-top so this means using whatever the hotel has available or go to an internet cafe, right?

You will only have to get the number for the room ad that you to place the call from. I would suggest you make use of the hotels amenities to add the number to your Rebtel account.

6. Any of my family that is with me that I want to call when we are away from each other will also need that countries SIM card, Correct?

The Rebtel service is optimized for making international calls, not domestic. If your travel companion gets lost and you have to get in touch with him or her, simply call their regular number associated with the SIM card they bought in that country. In this case, there is no need of using the Rebtel servie as you are calling domestically.

Thanks!

Alex

Thank you Alex:

OK. I am going to let you walk me through the process.

1.Before I leave the states I join up.
2. I have anyone that I intend to call when away from the US to join up also thus paying $3.99 each which they do via internet.
3. I add them to my contacts list. Now, when I am in these different countries, do I have to get on the internet and get new no.s for them so that they are a local call from that country?
4. When purchasing the {foriegn) SIM card, does it contain a certain amount of minutes requiring me to try to figure out how many minutes I will be using it in that country?

5. OK, so I am at my hotel and want to use the phone in my room. Do I have to get a number for that room and also the rooms of my family that are in other parts of the hotel? (I will not be taking my lap-top so this means using whatever the hotel has available or go to an internet cafe, right?

6. Any of my family that is with me that I want to call when we are away from each other will also need that countries SIM card, Correct?

Wow! you are going to be tired of me! but maybe if others read this blog it will help them with answers too.

Thans a million for your patience and help.

Marian

Marian,

That sounds like a fantastic trip! I hope you will enjoy Stockholm. It's a beautiful city.
I'm more than happy to help. Don't worry about it :)

Do I have to get a card from each country and what kind of cost can am I looking at?

Unfortunately, yes. Although, you can also use our service with land line numbers so when you're at your hotel you can add the hotels or your rooms number to call from. This won't incur any big charges either as you will be calling a local number.

Where do I buy a pre-paid card and is it like a sim card that I install in my cell phone/ What retail stores do I go to to get these pre-paid card?

Yes, it's a regular SIM card that you just put in your phone. Here in Europe you can get them in virtually any grocery store, super market or newspaper stand. The calling credit on these cards typically range from $10 - $100

Can my husband call me from the US on our landline through your service?

He sure can. Ask him to simply sign up to Rebtel using your land line number. He can add whatever number you give him depending on what country you're in, he gets a local U.S. number back and will be then able to call you for a few cents per minute.

Thanks!

Alex

Thanks Alex: I think I understand most of the procedure. However, where do I buy a pre-paid card and is it like a sim card that I install in my cell phone. I will be going to UK, Paris, Stockholm, Prague, EMA,Dublin and back to the US. Do I have to get a card from each country and what kind of cost can am I looking at. Also what retail stores do I go to to get these pre-paid cards. Can my husband call me from the US on our landline through your service. Sorry for all the questions but I would love to use Rebtel if I can get access to what I need. I have friends that would be interested in your service also once they see that I have success with it. We seniors are always out to save some money but we also find ourselves too cautions to try things we don't understand. Thank you for your patience.

Marian,

Thanks so much for taking the time to contact to us.

I'm not sure if you're saying that you'll be calling from the U.S. or to the U.S. while away on a trip. Hence, I will cover both scenarios.

If you're in the U.S. and want to call a friend or a family member traveling in Europe, you simply register with Rebtel and try the service out with our 5 free minutes you get to try service upon sign-up by adding an international and getting a local number back from us to call your friend on. If you enjoy the quality and decide to keep using the service, you simply make a deposit using PayPal or any of the major credit cards that we support.

As you're calling a local number you won't be paying anything to your carrier if you have a plan that includes a bucket of local minutes. If you don't, you pay the charge for a regular local to your carrier. In both cases, you pay a small fee on top to Rebtel (a few cents) that is deducted from the deposit you previously made into your account.

Now, if you're traveling abroad to any of our 50 countries where you can use our service, the procedure is very similar. The only difference is that you can't use your U.S. SIM card because you would incur costly roaming charges. What you have to do instead is simply buy a pre-paid card in the country you're currently in and add it to your Rebtel account and generate new local numbers. You can have up to 5 numbers associated with one Rebtel account to avoid opening up new accounts if you travel a lot.

Rebtel is a transparent pay-as-you-go calling service. In other words, you do not pay any hidden fees, connection charges or monthly subscription fees to use the service. Basically, what you see is what you get :)

Very best,

Alex

Being a senior citizen I am not saavy on the latest phone tech available. Just happened to run across Rebtel while surfing for good travel deals in Europe. Phone charges back to the U.S. in the past have seemed just too expensive. Please answer just a couple of questions. I am on T-Mobile and have a family plan. If I join Rebtel and get local numbers for my family, do I simply pay the minute rate that you advertise but also pay a $3.99 fee for each month that I use the service. Is there a contract or is it just as used. Thank you so much for answering my questions. Marian in Alabama

If you have a bucket plan with your regular carrier or have a different arrangement in place for your local calls, you only pay Rebtel a small fee for the international calls when using or Direct Call service. If you call to one of our Rebtel countries you are able to make Smart Calls and not paying anything to Rebtel for the international leg of the call.

You can read more about the Smart Calls and Direct Calls right here http://www.rebtel.com/en/How-i...

Thanks!

My local calls are free. Thus this mean that when I use to call the allocated number from Rebtel that I will only pay for the standard overseas call that I make because all my local & national landline calls are free as I pay another co. for this facility.

Your reply is greatly appreciated.
Yolanda

I don't get the rate that is published for Nepal Landline. It says 0.16, but I have been paying 0.229 please contact my email address if the customer service for rebtel disagress.

I just added somemore credit to my existing account but the rate still says .229.

Am I missing something here?

Thanks
Deepak

Hey Chris,

Thanks for the feedback.

If this is feasible for you, the best solution is to have inclusive local minutes in your monthly plan. A lot of our users that live in countries where local calls are expensive in general go around the problem that way and save money by making Smart Call with us when calling abroad. That way they pay a small, fixed monthly fee for the local minutes to their regular carrier and nothing to Rebtel, as Smart Calls are free.

You can make Smart Calls to any of our 50 countries where Rebtel is established.

You should definitely look into this and please do let me know how you do.

Thanks for the support!

Alex

I live in Turkey and I have been using Rebtel for a few months now, am in the main very pleased with the service but when signing up, I missed the crucial wording - pay for a local call - my calls are via Istanbul using 0212414. Having done some homework, it is now cheaper for me to dial international calls direct using TURK Telecom, the,rates being Kurus 10.08 per minute for an international call. If I add on the price of a local call Kurus 8.50 to REBTEL international charge, this makes the calls more expensive. A shame, I like to support and encourage competition but it seems from my checking that Turk Telecom are cheaper. Can this be right ?? Rgds Chris Pollard.