Archive for the ‘rebtel’ Category
Friday, August 8th, 2008
Hey guys!
Today is a special day for a lot of people from many cultures, especially in China. Over here at the Rebtel office in Stockholm you can almost feel it in the air. Let me tell you why.
It’s not a coincidence that this years summers Olympics in Beijing are scheduled to officially open on 8/8/08 at 8:08:08 PM. The word for “eight” in Chinese sounds very similar to the word which means “prosper” or “wealth”. And who wouldn’t want a little bit more of that in their lives? Especially when you’re hosting one of the largest and greatest events known to man and the eyes of the world are directed straight at you. How’s that for pressure? 
A lot of us that live in the western parts of the world would like to call the Chinese superstitious because of their faith and belief in the number 8. A lot of us would call the person in China insane that bought the phone number 8888-8888 for USD$270,723 in China (thanks Wikipedia). Here at Rebtel we call him (or her) a visionary. Even though we tend to want tangibility in our lives (because we often can control those things) this is a great day and opportunity to adopt the eastern way of taking control of your destiny.
To celebrate this, starting today stretching for two weeks, we’re launching the “Rebtel Goes Crazy For 8″ campaign. Here’s everything you need to know:
What
88 free minutes of calling to China to try Rebtel
888 free minutes to China for new customers who credit their account
Every 888th new user gets 888 RMB (Chinese currency approx. $130 credit) in their account
When
Friday, August 8, 2008 — 08/08/08
How
1. Go to http://www.rebtel.com, set up account (no charge), enter voucher code “888″
2. Enter your mobile number and your friend’s mobile number in China
3. Rebtel will give you a local number where you live to reach your friend
4. Dial the local phone number to speak with your friend in China
Enjoy and good luck to you!
Posted in China, calls, cheap, rebtel, voip | 1 Comment »
Monday, April 28th, 2008
A new day and a new post from San Francisco. This time the topic will be on one of the presentations from the actual conference that I found generally interesting, but particularly from a Rebtel perspective.
The session was entitled Mobile Ajax and the Future Web and was held by Daniel Appelquist. Daniel is senior technology strategist with the Vodafone Group based in London, UK, where he primarily works on Web and Internet projects and industry activities.
The first part of the talk (which I found most interesting) was a lot about the two different (and today separate) entities we refer to as “The Web” and “The Mobile Web” and how a convergence between the two is taking place.
In a (not too distant) future there will only be one Web when referring to mobile devices as well as regular laptops and desktops. Thematical Consistency, ensuring that content across all devices is provided coherently and consistently, will be ubiquitous and the standard to aim for. Thanks to devices like the iPhone (which naturally was mentioned as a groundbreaking device in this field), the task of obtaining Thematical Consistency becomes significantly easier.
Daniel also mentioned that today, mobile devices are slowly overtaking desktops and laptop based web usage (so cool). Mobile browsing is in other words seriously on the rise and with that device from Apple that came out last year securing a fourth place overall on the Internet browsing market share list with its 0.15%, we can get a hint of what’s to come. In as little as five years, the majority of the total worldwide web usage is predicted to be mobile (!).
A cool little detail during the talk, which felt very reassuring for us coming from someone like Daniel, was that he mentioned Rebtel (see the picture above) as one of the companies that truly are in the forefront in mobile technology and web. Thank you Daniel, you are a rock star!
Posted in 2.0, In the media, Vodafone, blog, daniel appelquist, iphone, mobile, rebtel, rebtel staff, rebtel web, web 2.0 expo | No Comments »
Saturday, April 26th, 2008
As you might know, some of us from the Rebtel crew are over in sunny San Francisco, California to attend the Web 2.0 Expo. The Expo, which ended on Friday, was really awesome and featured some very heavy names from this web world of ours. A selection of some of the people we were fortunate enough to see include Tim O’Reilly (O’Reilly Media), Jonathan Schwartz (CEO at Sun Microsystems), and Marc Andreesen (co-author of the first web browser Mosaic and currently with Ning).
We will cover some of the most interesting talks from a Rebtel perspective in a later post. To make sure you don’t miss it, you can go ahead and subscribe to our blogs RSS Feed.
Anyhow, on our flight from Chicago to San Francisco we noticed that Verizon offers a solution for in-flight calls. That’s great you might say, considering you are not (yet) allowed to use your mobile phone on board an aircraft to call your business acquaintance or your friend waiting for you on the ground to pick up you up. Phones on planes are pretty much ubiquitous and not new thing in any shape or form so nothing really remarkable there. Although, what did catch our attention, was the price they charged. If you’re a sensitive person, you might want to hold on to something. To call with Verizon on a United Airlines flight, you have to pay the ridiculous amount of $10 per minute + taxes and a setup fee (see the image above). God knows how much that setup fee is but the point is, for us that are accustomed to making international calls for just a few cents per minute, this was a pretty shocking revelation. Trust me.
So what are the learnings here? Well, you will be able to call use your mobile phone on flights sooner rather than later so maybe Rebtel should get into the market of offering ultra-cheap international calls while in the air? You know what, maybe be will! What we do know for certain is that we have barely scratched the surface of what is possible and we still have a long way to go on our road towards making sure as many people as possible have the opportunity to make international calls for the cost of a local call.
Best wishes from San Francisco,
Alex
Posted in Verizon, blog, rebtel, rebtel staff, telecom cartels, web 2.0 expo | No Comments »
Friday, April 11th, 2008
We’re off to the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco later this month. According to their website, the expo will:
“…take the pulse of the Web ecosystem and look to its future, training a spotlight across the Web 2.0 universe to illuminate how the Internet Revolution is being created and delivered. Web 2.0 Expo is for the builders of the next generation web: designers, developers, entrepreneurs, marketers, business strategists, and venture capitalists, people who have experiences to share and a passion for learning–the hot new thing, lessons from failures, innovations and inspirations, and the practical applications of all of the above.”
We’ll be doing some microblogging from the event, so be sure to add us to your Twitter friends if you haven’t already. Or maybe we’ll even see you there - let us know!
Posted in 2.0, rebtel | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 9th, 2008
Wouldn’t it be great if readers of your site or blog could call you on your mobile, while you kept your real number hidden? Thanks to our new ‘Call Me’ button, now they can!
The button generates a local Rebtel number that your readers or customers can use to reach you, at local rates, while you keep your real number private.
Use the button above to try it out! You’ll get through to the main Rebtel switchboard.
If you don’t wish to receive calls but would still like to share Rebtel, you can add a ‘Join Rebtel’ button instead. And, if any of your readers joins Rebtel via your links, you’ll earn minutes - currently 10 minutes for every reader who joins and makes a call.
Visit our Share page to get your buttons.
Posted in blog, rebtel | 2 Comments »
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
If you’re reading this you most probably already know that Verizon prevents its customers from sending SMS to themselves from the Rebtel web site. These SMS messages contain local U.S. phone numbers that allow Rebtel users to make low-cost or free international calls.
Verizon also prevents its customers from receiving SMS from Rebtel customers outside of the U.S.
Well, it now appears that AT&T Wireless has started playing games with SMS, targeting messages that its customers send to themselves or receive from friends using Rebtel services – both from http://www.rebtel.com as well as from Rebtel’s free Facebook conference call service, Group Talk.
To avoid the indictment of blocking Rebtel SMS, it looks like AT&T has turned all SMS from Rebtel services into what’s called Flash SMS. As a result, the messages are only temporarily stored when displayed; as soon as you close the message, it disappears and is not automatically stored in the phone’s Inbox.
I’m told by my more technical colleges that this is no coincidence – that there is a trigger value that has to be set by AT&T to make the SMS into a Flash SMS, instead of a normal message.
I know this is happening because I’m an AT&T Wireless customer and experience their nasty trick regularly when I receive Group Talk notifications for free conference calls. And, friends who are also AT&T subscribers report the same experience.
So – Shame on you AT&T Wireless. This is a dirty trick right out of the Verizon playbook, and it’s time to stop.
Posted in AT&T, Flash SMS, SMS, Verizon, blog, calls, cheap, disruption, facebook, group talk, international, mobile, mvoip, rebtel, telephony, text message, voip | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 5th, 2008
Here at Rebtel, we encourage users of our service to give us feedback on what we can do better and what we’re doing well (flattery always welcome!). Naturally, it’s very nice once in a while to hear from you guys that the work we do is appreciated embraced and makes your lives easier.
As some of you might know, not too long ago we launched a brand new, really neat Facebook app called Group Talk . Group Talk allows users to set up conference calls with each other in a truly simplified manner. You don’t even have to be a Facebook member to join in on the conversation - how sweet is that?
Recently, Group Talk got some well-deserved attention from the wicked people over at the blog Facebook Applications . They write reviews on different, cool, and useful apps you can find on Facebook, and recently they wrote about us (woohoo!!). Here is a short snippet from the review:
“…for people like me living abroad with so many friends to call and so many hours spend in websites providing services like this application does, Group Talk is a really interesting application that lets me stay checking all my stuff in my Facebook plus get connected for free in some cases, or at really cheap rates, with a great quality of sound.â€
We’d like to take this opportunity to thank the nice people over at Facebook Applications for the wonderful review (they gave us 4 out of a possible 5, woohoo again!). Thanks guys. Please keep providing all the Social Media and Facebook types like us and others out there with insightful reports!
Lastly, if you have written a review about our Facebook app, our service in general, or have any tips or suggestions on how we can make what we are doing better, please do not hesitate to send an email our way.
Until next time, have a wonderful week!
Posted in 2.0, Jajah, blog, facebook, facebook apps, group talk, mobile, rebtel | 4 Comments »
Thursday, January 17th, 2008
Today Rebtel launched a new Facebook application called Group Talk that lets you setup free conference calls with people in any of the 40 Rebtel countries.Â
If you’re not a Facebook user you should join just to use Group Talk. It makes it super easy to set up free conference calls and has lots of cool bells and whistles worth checking out.Â
Once you’ve downloaded Group Talk you can set up a free conference call with as may people as you want in less than a minute. You just enter your Facebook friends’ names, and click Add. You can then make the call private – just for the people invited – or public, which makes the call open to any of your friends who want to join. To include people who are not Facebook users you enter the participants’ names, mobile phone numbers or landline numbers and their email addresses, and click Add. That’s it. Everyone invited to a Group Talk call automatically receives a local dial-in number in the city or country where they live via SMS (text message) or email. For the first person who joins a conference call, Group Talk offers to notify all of the other invited participants that the Group Talk session is starting.Â
Facebook users are able to see public Group Talk conference calls as they’re happening that have been set up by their friends, by members of the Facebook groups that they’ve joined, or by the organizers of events they’ve been invited to attend, and can get a phone number to join any of those Group Talk calls with a single click of the mouse.Â
And because Group Talk is built by Rebtel, conference call participants’ personal phone numbers are always kept private.Â
Group Talk conference calls are always free – no matter how long you talk. So give it a try. Do something fun. Get your friends or family together to celebrate someone’s birthday. If you’re an Aussie living abroad, set up a Group Talk call with all your mates back home the Saturday after next for Australia Day. And now that Rebtel is up and running in Shanghai don’t forget Chinese New Year – it’s just around the corner. But whatever you do with Group Talk please drop us a line and tell us what you think. We hope you enjoy it. Happy talking.
Posted in China, Shanghai, blog, facebook, facebook apps, international, mobile, rebtel, telephony, voip | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, January 15th, 2008
The folks at lucafiligheddu.com decided to compare a bunch of VOIP services. They bought a PAYG SIM card from T-Mobile and, beyond the initial set-up, didn’t use a PC while on the go.
Services compared were Jajah Direct, Mobivox, RebTel ,Talkster and WifiMobile. Rebtel was considered to have the best features and to be the overall best choice. The review concludes:
“RebTel offers the most complete range of features at a very competitive price, letting you choose what to do, whether to use your Rebtel credit for calling out or sharing the cost with the person you are calling by using the call back feature.”
They go on to say:
“I praise RebTel for having really improved their service since its first launch, so that it deserves to be selected as the best choice in this comparison.”
We’re blushing! Cheers dudes. We’re glad you like the service.
Posted in In the media, blog, mobile, rebtel, t-mobile, voip | 14 Comments »
Friday, January 4th, 2008
Happy new year! And what nicer way to begin 2008 than with this email from a lady called Erica:
Hi Rebtel,
I just wanted to thank you for the service you provide! I met the love of my life in May 2007, and until I found your website I was paying phone bills in excess of £400 per month. You have not only reduced my bill to £14 per month, but made it possible for me to keep in contact with him on a more regular basis - and his family too.
Thankyou thankyou thankyou!!!!!
Regards, Erica
Aw, cheers Erica. Anyone else have a similarly heart-warming Rebtel tale? We’d love to hear it!
Posted in customer stories, rebtel | 2 Comments »
