December 3rd, 2009 posted by alexander drewniak

Today we’re proud to announce a new service currently in Beta called Computer Calls. With Computer Calls you’re able to call your Rebtel contacts from anywhere in the world using your regular Skype™ client.

Computer Calls are great if you want to make Rebtel calls from countries where you don’t have a SIM card or where the regular Rebtel service isn’t available. You initiate the call on the Rebtel website and use your Skype client to talk. As you’re calling directly over the Internet with Rebtel, you don’t have to pay a single cent for connection fees or high per-minute rates to Skype. Only the Rebtel rate.

To put the savings in perspective, the rate for calling a friend in India on their mobile using SkypeOut™ is 9.2¢ per minute. On top of that you also have to pay a connection fee of 7.9¢. Add it all together and you’ll get subtotal of 53.9¢ for a 5 minute call.

If you were to make that same call with our Computer Calls service using the very same client, you only pay the per-minute Rebtel rate to India, which is 1.8¢. There are no connection fees involved and your subtotal amounts to a mere 9¢.

Computer Calls also allow you to get a local number for your friends Skype Name and call them on it from your regular phone. In addition, you can also have all incoming Rebtel calls routed to your Skype client before having them go through to your preferred mobile or land line.

We’ve put together a brief guide to further explain the different features.

Using Computer Calls To Call Rebtel Friends

Go to your contact list on the Rebtel website, click on the local number of the friend you want to call and choose the new “Call from your computer” option.

Your Skype client is launched and you will be connected to your friend. You only pay the Rebtel rate.

Using Computer Calls To Receive Calls

With Computer Calls activated you can choose to receive incoming calls from Rebtel friends in your Skype client. In the settings menu, you can configure if you want Skype to ring for 10, 20 or 30 seconds before the call is automatically forwarded to your regular phone.

If you decide to answer the call on Skype, your friend calling only has to pay the cost for a local call. For you on the receiving end, the call is free.

Calling Friends On Their Skype Name

By adding Skype Names to your Rebtel contacts, you have the option of calling them directly on Skype. As usual, you’ll get a local Rebtel number back that you can save to your phonebook and call from your regular phone.

You only pay the cost for a local call to your carrier. The international part is free of cost.

Mind you, Computer Calls is a service currently in Beta. In other words, there are still a few kinks here and there that we need to iron out. Please bear with us and be sure to let us know on our Get Satisfaction page if you find any bugs that we should be aware of.

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