Rebtel Chief Marketing Officer Patric Blixt Speaking at Arctic15 Conference October 28th, 2011  

A while ago, on September 22 to be precise, our lovely CMO, Patric Blixt, jumped on the plane and flew to Helsinki to speak at an awesome conference called Arctic15 organized by our friends over at ArcticStartup.

Patric has been with us since 2007, and he’s worked with digital media since 1995 at agencies like Young&Rubicam Brand Dialogue and at start-ups like Pricerunner.com. Prior to Rebtel, Patric was Director Global New Media, where he helped transform one of the most image-driven brands in the world, ABSOLUT VODKA, into offering brand utility and thereby creating the largest spirit brand online.

If you want to connect with Patric or just hear more from him, you can follow him on Twitter here.

By: alexander drewniak Tags: , , , ,

Rebtel At GigaOM Mobilize Conference October 8th, 2010  

Last week, myself, Andreas, Patric and Hjalmar from the Rebtel team had the pleasure of flying over from cold and gloomy Stockholm to sunny San Francisco, California to attend the annual GigaOM Mobilize conference.

In addition to having our own nice little booth, where spoke to fellow industry peers about our service, the future of the calling as well as handed out really cool Rebtel mini-footballs (they were a big hit), we also organized a workshop and saw Andreas, our CEO, give a very interesting talk on what the calling industry will look like in the future and what companies have the best prerequisites to succeed in this space.

A couple of noteworthy takeaways from the talk are that international consumer calling has grown a from 10 billion minutes in 1990 to a remarkable 400 billion today. This growth can largely be attributed to the huge number of people moving from emerging countries to Europe or the USA, and they have, just like the rest of us, a very strong and inherent need for finding cheap, honest and reliable calling services that can help them to keep in touch with their loved ones back home. In addition, there’s been an enormous growth in mobile subscriptions in the countries where people have been moving from.

Andreas also touched on how wonderful technology is in the way that it shifts the power back to us; the consumers of the world. Just as what the digital age has done to industries such as retail, finance and travel, it’s now doing the same for the calling industry.

10 of the largest operators in the world have more than half of all mobile subscribers combined, and their problem is that they can’t quite wrap their heads around what consumer really want. We think that a good starting point is to assume that it’s good quality, low cost, transparency, simplicity and flexibility.

These are a few of the assumptions that the Rebtel service has been built on, and we hope that all the operators out there will understand that it’s not feasible (or very nice) to ensure that customers stay with you by tying them to your service 24 months at a time.

If you’re interested in finding out more about people’s international calling habits, feel free to check out our study on international calling habits that we did with Harris Interactive a few weeks ago.

By: alexander drewniak Tags: , , , , , , ,

O2 Blocks Rebtel Access Numbers In Germany August 22nd, 2008  

Dear Rebtel friends,

Unfortunately O2 has decided to block Rebtel in Germany. That means that O2 customers could not call our local German numbers during several days. As a temporary solution we have set up new number series for Germany which means you should be able to create new local numbers to your friends in other countries again. However your old local numbers to existing friends have been changed. Please go to www.rebtel.com to view your new local numbers.

The reason why O2 wants to stop Rebtel is pretty obvious. They have very high margins on their international calling and want to stop any threats to that. Their actions violate not only the crystal clear EU-regulations but are also a breach of your contract with O2(!). This should be more than enough for you as an O2 customer to end your contract (..and maybe also keep your iPhone :) and switch to another operator that allows you to call any number you please, including Rebtel access numbers.

If you are as upset as we are about this and feel like you want to blow off some steam you might want to consider sending an mail to the boss of O2 in Germany, Mr. Jaime Smith Basterra (jaime.smith@o2.com), or you can call their support desk on 0049 179 55 22 2. Just to stick it to them, you might want to consider adding the number to your Rebtel contact list and call them through us.

To summarize, we are sorry this happened. It shouldn’t have to. This is now a race between O2 and us. Every new number series we launch they will try to block. This is not the first time O2 block international calling services that allow users to call cheaper. However, we are determined not to back down and will make this their last attempt at killing better services.

The fact remains, old operators will always cling on to their decreasing margins, lock-in contracts, hidden charges, big offices, expensive TV-commercials, and out-dated methods but they cannot stop the future of calling. When internet now meets telecom, operators are going to have to change or die. Internet stands for transparency, consumer value, openness and change. Values that clash against the business models of all telecom operators.

One day soon, all calling will be free. Together, we will achieve that.

Take care!
Patric Blixt
patric.blixt@rebtel.com

Edit: Oh yeah, almost forgot. If you want to help us spread the word and have a Digg account, click here and give this post a Digg.

If you want to discuss this topic further and blow off some steam, head over to this thread on our forum. Make your voice count!

By: alexander drewniak Tags: , , ,