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.
That probably sounds a bit odd coming from Rebtel these days. But yesterday Verizon and AT&T rolled out new plans that give U.S. customers unlimited airtime minutes for a flat fee of $100. And flat fee plans are music to our ears – even if the carrier continues to block its customers’ SMS.
Unlimited airtime minutes means anyone who subscribes to one of these plans now has the ability to make unlimited free international calls to 39 countries around the world using Rebtel’s Smart Call system.
But even if they’re not willing to jump through the few hoops that make the international portion of call free, they can still take advantage of our super low-cost rates for calling any phone, anywhere in the world.
And eventually, we hope that Verizon will come to its senses and stop preventing its customers from sending standard SMS – text messages – to themselves and their friends if they contain local phone numbers issued by Rebtel.
Late last week I spoke with Robert Poe, a reporter for VoIP-News and DailyWireless about this issue. As any good reporter should do, Robert contacted Verizon after our call. Verizon – no surprise – denies that it is blocking SMS that their customers try to send to themselves or that their friends try to send to them from the Rebtel web site.
Robert declined Rebtel’s help to test our claims, which will make his findings all the more powerful when they come out. In the mean time, with the kind help of my comrade Fredrik Henning, I thought I’d take a minute to shed some light the mechanics of this problem and why Verizon is not telling the truth.
To be able to send SMS to people in U.S. from a system platform – not person to person – a short code number is required to identify the sender of the messages. Therefore every provider of messaging services has to apply for a dedicated or shared short code (a 5-6 digit number) from the Common Short Code Administration (CSCA), which Rebtel had done and received.
The reason for this bureaucracy is that the U.S. market applies interconnect charges differently than other countries. In the U.S. mobile recipients pay for incoming SMS. In contrast, people in Europe do not pay for incoming SMS because the operators in Europe are being paid by the originating operators to cover the cost of delivering the SMS to the recipient.
Rebtel wants its customers to be able to send SMS to their friends that are mobile subscribers in U.S. mobile networks. Rebtel wishes only to send SMS on behalf of the users, and not perform any unsolicited bulk messaging (a.k.a. SPAM or advertising).
So, despite what Verizon spokesman Jeffrey Nelson tells the press, every SMS sent from Rebtel’s system is sent on behalf of the users who have requested that Rebtel send SMS to their friends or to themselves.
But it doesn’t end here. To get a short code implemented in a U.S. mobile operator’s network a specification of traffic flow and commands has to be submitted to each operator for approval of the process of OPT-IN and OPT-OUT, insuring that the recipients really do wish to get charged for receiving SMS.
Rebtel provided its specification of this process and got it approved by some operators, but not all – namely, Verizon.
So the bottom line is we’ve played by the rules. Our specification follows all requirements to get a short code approved with regards to OPT-IN and OPT-OUT. Yet, Verizon refuses to approve it. What’s that about? Why is this allowed?
We think it’s now time for the industry to stand up to this bullying.
We think the CTIA – the trade association “dedicated to expanding the wireless frontier†– needs to reprimand Verizon and demand they play by the rules.
And if that doesn’t work, then we think it really is time for the FCC to do something about Verizon and its blatant anti-competitive abuse of power.
Soon after Public Knowledge, Free Press and others filed a petition asking the FCC to rule that text messaging and related short codes are protected from “unjust and unreasonable discrimination,†Rebtel – which was named in the petition – received some attention in the press, and Verizon was none too happy about it.  Â
I’m talking about the Verizon that reported $1 billion in earning last quarter while adding 2 million wireless customers to bring its total to 65.7 million.Â
The Verizon that went to Capitol Hill recently as part of the CTIA to ask that they be spared from the indignities of “burdensome regulation†on their text-messaging services and short-code offerings.
The same Verizon that told BusinessWeek that Rebtel can “still text-message our customers to offer their service.â€Â
And the very same Verizon that is now preventing its customers from sending standard SMS – text messages – to themselves and their friends if they contain local phone numbers issued by Rebtel.Â
Goliath didn’t like the negative attention it received in the press regarding its treatment of little David. It doesn’t want people – especially people at the FCC – to know that Verizon violates their customers’ freedom of speech every day.Â
So they contacted Rebtel just before the New Year and told us that they would stop blocking their customers’ SMS – IF – Rebtel would shut down all PR on the short code issue and send a letter to the FCC in praise of Verizon and its new openness and cooperation with Rebtel.Â
Being the trusting souls that we are, we complied. We stopped talking to the press. And when the press called during January we explained that Verizon had seen the light – that we were talking with Verizon and expected to have an announcement from the two companies shortly.Â
At first Verizon complained because there were some straggler stories appearing on the Web. And then there was silence. No response to our mail. Return phone calls came to a halt. Nothing. Â
It took as a week or two but we finally realized that we had been tricked. Verizon had tricked us into silence. Well, shame on us! We should have known better. And now we do.Â
But the true shame – the real crime – is that Verizon customers are being prevented from sending SMS messages to themselves and their friends from the Rebtel web site. Â
We’re not asking for special access or treatment. We just want Verizon customers to be able to send standard text messages to themselves and their friends regardless of the content. That’s what free speech is all about.  But Verizon thinks differently. Â
Because it doesn’t like what’s in those SMS – local phone numbers that will connect Verizon customers to their friends and family abroad for just pennies per minute instead of the highway robbery charged by Verizon for the same call – and because they don’t like the viral nature of the Rebtel service, Verizon shuts them down. It turns off their customers’ right to send SMS.Â
Well, live and learn, as they say. But I promise, this one ain’t over! This David, for one, is pissed.
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.Â
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.  Â
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. Â
But to get short codes you have to apply to each carrier for a campaign, which Rebtel did through its U.S. service provider.Â
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.Â
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.Â
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.Â
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.Â
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.Â
The US market is highly regulated when it comes to sending text messages to consumers. Due to the fact that users there pay for receiving SMS messages, to be able to send text messages from a service like Rebtel we’re required to go through a certification process by each mobile operator in the US.
This is great, as it protects users. But two of the largest operators are declining our application because we’re cannibalizing on their international call revenue. Yet another example of network operators abusing their dominance in the market preventing new entrants from bringing value and innovation to the customer.
However, it does look as though some small headway is being made. T-Mobile has just been ordered to stop blocking WiFi rival Truphone’s calls. Truphone, which routes calls via WiFi when handsets are within range of wireless hotspots, accused T-Mobile of abusing their dominant position in the market, and yesterday the High Court granted an intermin injunction, forcing T-mobile to connect calls made to Truphone numbers.
James Tagg, Truphone’s chief executive officer, says:
“The injunction is good news not only for Truphone but for every company trying to develop internet-era services and for every consumer wanting freedom of choice and lower prices. We are determined to bring better-value mobile calls, text messages and other innovative services to mobile phone users, and it’s right that we should not be prevented from doing so.”
Over in the US, meanwhile, Skype are petitioning the Federal Communications Commission (under the “Carterfone†rules) in an attempt to force US mobile operators to loosen controls on what kinds of hardware and software can be connected to their networks. If the rules of the upcoming Federal Communications Commission auction of 700MHz spectrum (probably due to take place in January 2008) are written in such a way as to encourage ‘open access’, the wireless market might finally be able to evolve into an open, thriving, innovative network, free from the stranglehold the mobile operators currently have on it. With Truphone’s case set to continue later this year, it looks like this winter might be an interesting one…
There’s been a lot of noise about VoIP providers such as Jajah and their ability to circumvent the iPhone’s marriage to AT&T via VoIP calling.
Yes, Jajah provides an alternative to expensive AT&T global calls, but their solution is less than elegant. With Jajah, every time you want to make a call, you need to use the iPhone’s browser to connect to the Jajah website, where you must manually enter the number you wish to call.
With Rebtel, that’s unnecessary. After all, 99% of mobile calls are made by one of two methods:
- Choosing a contact from the phone’s address book
- Entering a number onto the keypad
Rebtel lets you make international VoIP calls in exactly the same way as you normally do - from one phone to another, via your contact list, at the touch of a button.
On average, 80% of international minutes are spent calling the same five numbers. Unlike Jajah, which requires repeated visits to its website, Rebtel numbers can be set up during one quick visit to Rebtel.com. A two-minute visit to Rebtel’s site should be more than sufficient to enable the user to create local numbers for his or her international contacts.
After that, they need never visit www.rebtel.com again if they wish, as those numbers are permanent ones, and can be saved to the iPhone’s address book.
Rebtel users can then make international calls from the iPhone’s address book using their AT&T minutes as they do all other calls, but for a price matching Raketu or Jajah. They’ll also receive 10 minutes of free international calls when they first sign up, plus a 10 minute bonus the first time they credit their account.
Rebtel’s simple service can help you enjoy cheap international calls with your iPhone at the touch of a button.
See www.rebtel.com for more details, or watch this video to learn how to make Rebtel calls using only your inclusive minutes.
Hindsight is such a wonderful thing. While rummaging through a load of old files I came across a set of predictions, issued by wireless unleashed, as to possible business models for VOIP. It’s obvious that the VOIP market is getting crowded and that players operate from similar set of assumptions, leading to equally similar business models. The interesting bit in wireless unleashed’s four scenarios is the business models they describe. They mention four, each imaginatively named:
Telcotopia (the incumbent’s “official” future); Utilitiyability (the utilities industry uses its infrastructure to deliver connectivity); HeLLL with three L’s (lobbying, legislation and litigation ensures the stranglehold of the operators). The fourth scenario is mentioned almost as an afterthought: Community Owned networks. Wireless unleashed describes a situation analogous to how car ownership works:
Clearly, the customer/end-user/network owner would not need to acquire all skills necessary to build and run a network, any more than an automobile owner builds and fixes her own automobile. The construction and maintenance of the network could be outsourced to engineering and operation firms where it makes sense to do so; by analogy, we own our own car even though it is manufactured by a car builder and repaired by a mechanic when it breaks. But the customer-owner-end user would make the major decisions, finance the initiatives that affect the network, and contract for maintenance and upgrades.
They point out there could be other ownership models, for instance, one where groups of consumers own the network, as is happening now with groups of condominium owners who collectively own a fibre-optic network. But it is also conceivable that each end user is also an owner of the network. This is where the “fat” home network touches the “fat” internet backbone, by-passing the skinny “access” factor that now bars people from fully accessing services. Wireless unleashed sees a number of conditions that need to be fullfilled for Customer Owned Networks to be a viable alternative, and I think that now, in 2007, we can check off each of their conditions:
Access to the network must become easier to configure - check
Third party network construction companies must appear - check (but differently from how WU imagined it)
The regulatory climate determining right of way must improve - (check, but also differently from how WU imagined it)
The promise of mobile-voip communications, set up in a way so that WiFi access points can form an individuall owned “resource” to be shared collectively amongst a group of users brings the Customer Owned Network scenario within reach. Looking at it another way: customers who sniff wifi access point and then share them to provide a mobile VOIP infrastructure make the network customer built, not just customer owned. We now live in an era where more and more online networks are forming into large collectives of consumers. Content (even paid for content) is now collectively manufactured, marketed and sold. It is a matter of time before this collective intelligence spreads to the domain of the mobile operators. Wifi and VOIP enabled mobile hardware will open the door for this.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: VOIP handsets are the future of mobile telephony. At Rebtel we‘ve taken the first steps towards that future by enabling any user of any handset to start making VOIP calls using their inclusive minutes. Sadly Apple doesn’t seem to share that vision. Not only has VOIP been disabled on the iPhone, but the remarkable deal that Apple struck with AT&T to bring the iPhone to life is turning out to be very disappointing for the lucky few who managed to get hold of one…
Reports on the botched AT&T activation process for iPhone are now starting to flood in. The issue that turns the iPod into a veritable iBrick is that for the thing to work at all, it needs activation through its simcard with AT&T. That means that if you switched from, say, Verizon, to AT&T, you’re in line, just as you were in line for an iPhone. You now have this wonderful machine, but cannot do anything with it (yet) because you’re waiting for activation by AT&T!
It could be worse, my iPhone won’t let me transfer my number from TMobile. It just says “The phone number you entered cannot be transferred. You must uncheck the transfer number option and clear the information in the text fields to continue.†Worse off, I want a good explanation for this, not some dinky you have to tell everyone you know what your new number is.. ugh… and yes i have triple checked all my info.
So with all the attention being on the hardware, it shouldn’t be overlooked, ever, that phones are solidified software and services. Why the iPhone’s functionality should be tied to activation through AT&T is beyond me. It’s probably an operator thing, as was the decision to disable VOIP on the iPhone. So iPhone buyers get a beautiful machine that’s horribly crippled by the stranglehold AT&T now seems to have on Apple. A shame, and harmful to Apple’s reputation as a challenger brand.
It’s also a good demonstration of how the telephony market works: handset manufacturers and operators are in the same bed, and that means that we, their customers, are being deprived of functionality that could be ours if only….
To my mind this is not a sustainable business model. As the growing controversy about iPhone activation shows, we, the customers, want to be set free.
Once VOIP handsets become available, users of mobile services will be able to band together and circumvent mobile protocols altogether. It’s only a matter of time before the first VOIP enabler hacks appear for the iPhone. In the meantime, the first step towards reclaiming at least some of the territory now occupied by the operators is to use their bucket plans to free ourselves from their outrageous pricing schemes. And for that, you know where to go…
Our lovely We Love Your Operator films are finally here! See London dissolve in a 60s-inspired, sun-drenched haze as our Rebel hippies make sweet love (not literally) to mobile phone operators across town. See 3 act bemused! See The Carphone Warehouse look nonplussed! And see misery-guts Orange not showing us any love at all! Come on Orange. Give us a smile!
I am shocked to find out that as Vodafone announced their increased annual revenue, experts have claimed this is because customers are not using up the inclusive minutes offered with their phone contracts.
The extent of free calls wasted is so high that the average Vodafone customer needlessly throws away 816 free minutes every year at a cost of 0.04p per minute. This means Vodafone’s 6.96m contract customers waste £227.2m in free calls every single year – 14 times more than the construction cost of the Scottish parliament building and enough to build a brand new state-of-the-art hospital.
These free minutes could be used to call friends and family abroad completely free. Instead, every unused minute goes straight back into the profits of the major operators, which saw Vodafone announce a £31.1bn annual revenue yesterday.
Commenting on this Hjalmar explained:
It’s shocking to think that most mobile users are throwing away hundreds of inclusive minutes every year – minutes that could be used to call abroad for free with Rebtel. The major operators know this, but still don’t highlight it to their customers, leading to revenues we are seeing now. We want Britain’s millions of mobile users to know that we think it’s time they stopped getting used by the operators, and started putting their free minutes to good use instead.
My advice to all of you is to thank your operator for all the minutes they are giving you and use them as international calls.
