Rebtel Blog

Introducing Rebtel SMS Beta

During the course of last year, we received boat loads of feature and general service improvement suggestions from you, our wicked cool users. We read all your emails, Get Satisfaction threads, Tweets and Fan Page wall posts. From the bottom of our baby blue Rebtel hearts we would like to thank you for all the efforts you’ve made to help us take Rebtel to the next level. Together we will do great things in 2009 and we have some pretty spectacular stuff to come. Thank you.

Out of all the cool stuff you wanted to see on Rebtel.com, SMS messages to Rebtel friends was one that kept popping up time and time again. Even though we love talking to people (especially when the calls are cheap or free) we get what you’re saying. Sometimes an SMS message is a better man for the job than a lengthy phone call. Therefore we would like for you to meet the newest addition to the family of Rebtel services; our SMS Beta.

With the SMS Beta you can send cheap text messages straight from your address book to Rebtel friends as well as any other random person that you have a mobile phone number to (we don’t condone random SMS messaging). If you’re eager to give this a go but don’t really know where to start, I took the liberty of preparing a short visual guide.

First off, log in to your Rebtel account. Once you have that out of the way go to your Contact List. You will now have to take a pretty big decision, namely who you will grace with the pleasure of receiving an SMS from you Once you’ve made up your mind, click on their name.

After the Contact Box has expanded, you will see a brand new option at the bottom that says ‘SMS’ and the name of your friend. Click this option to open up a Lightbox with the SMS Dashboard.

In my particular case, you can see that I have chosen to send my SMS to my Best Friend In The World. He’s the best. The drop down menu that specifies who the SMS is going out to is already defined as I previously clicked on this name. If  you would change your mind you can use this menu to pick another recipient of your message. As you go along and start typing, you will see that the character, cost and SMS counters will start ticking. If you exceed the standard SMS limit of 160 characters your message will be divided up in to two sendouts instead of one.

When you’re done typing your message, simply press ‘Send’. That’s all there is to it! Please note that you are not able to send SMS messages via Rebtel to friends and family in the U.S. This problem is naturally something that we’re working hard on to amend so plese bear with us. Lastly, since this is a Beta and all, we still have some kinks left in the chain to straighten out. If you stumble upon any funny bugs that are giving you a hard time, please do send an email our way.

Out With The Old - In With The New

Now it’s time to get a little sentimental (we’re emotional people so please bear with us). Rebtel was introduced in May of 2006 and it’s a sure thing to say that we’ve managed to come a long way since then. Throughout almost two and a half years millions of smart people around the globe have been connected with their friends, family and business acquaintances by trusting the Rebtel way of making international calls. For this we would like to thank you. We want to thank you for all the support and most importantly for taking a stand against all carriers that charge you those ridiculous rates when you want to call your mom back home. We’ve said from the start that we are in this to win this and we are more determined than ever to deliver on that promise. One day all calling will be free and you can consider yourself a big part of making that happen.

Now that we’re over and done with all the reminiscing, we can continue to checking out the new features on the Rebtel site. To get a visual of all the features, click on the thumbnail below and you’ll be taken to our Flickr page.

Visual of New Features

Enhanced contact management

• Tabbed Browsing

Some of you have contact lists that are pretty big. That’s not a hassle anymore since we’re introducing a completely new way to manage your contacts. The all-new ‘Favorites’ tab makes it easy to find the contacts you call most frequently. Simply click the star next to the name of your contact, and they’ll appear under your Favorites tab for easy access. You can also view a list of your recent activity, or click ‘All’ to see all your contacts in alphabetical order.

• Multi-Numbers

We’ve also made it much easier to store details for each contact. Previously, if you had two separate numbers for a contact - a mobile number and an office number, for example - the contact would appear in your contact list twice (not very convenient). So, instead of having multiple entries with the same name, you can now save several numbers under one contact name – this makes it much easier to find the right number you’re looking for.

• Rate Display

No more rushing off to the rates page to see the current price of calling to your friend - you now have all the rates handy right on your contacts page next to your friends local Rebtel number. This will make it so much easier for you to easily keep track of how you’re spending your Rebtel credit.

• Contact Search

You can instantly find who you’re looking for with just a few keystrokes - our seach engine will now return results to you before you’ve even finished typing the name. It’s also possible to search among your friends’ contact lists. No need to trouble your friend for a mutual friends number - you can easily find it yourself.

Collect Calls

Did you know that your contacts can call you collect? If they’re in a Rebtel country but don’t have a Rebtel account, they can call your Rebtel number and the call will be debited from your Rebtel account. This is a great way for people back home to get in touch with you if they’re for some reason unable to add credit.

If someone calls you collect, we’ll now ask your permission before connecting the call. We’ll also inform you of the per minute rate that will be debited from your account if you choose to accept the call. In your settings menu you can choose to always accept, always reject or if you to choose make that decision every time someone calls you collect. Now all of this is up to you.

Protect Your Privacy

Of course, it’s up to you how much info to share. You can fine-tune your settings to keep your original phone number private, only show it to your friends, allow your friend of a friend or even all the cool people that use Rebtel to see it to easily get a local Rebtel number for you. Now isn’t that so ace?

Share Rebel With Your Fiends

You don’t want to keep all the good thing to yourself, do you? We didn’t think so. Here at Rebtel we live by the motto “sharing is caring” and with regards to that, we’ve added more features to make it even easier to tell your friends about Rebtel. You can quickly track the status of your invites to see if your invites are pending, or if your friends have already signed up and started enjoying the benefits of making cheap calls.

That’s about it for now. I apologize for the long post but I really felt like telling you everything there is to say and not hold anything back All of us here at Rebtel sincerely hope you will enjoy all this new stuff and if you have any questions you can check out our Get Satisfaction page or send us an email to customerteam@rebtel.com

O2 Blocks Rebtel Access Numbers In Germany

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!

Rebtel Featured In Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal is without a doubt considered as one of the most influential news publications we have in the world today. To get a mention in “The Journal” is something not a lot of companies can boast about but as of yesterday, Rebtel is among the select few.

To check out the article, click here.