Usually, we overlook things that sound too good to be true. Free quotes, free cruises, free shipping & handling, free minutes. Wait, did I say free international minutes? It isn’t too good to be true now thanks to RebTel.
International calls when not using a phone card can take quite a toll on your wireless bill or your domestic landline bill. RebTel is a Swedish VoIP service that assigns you a local number and your overseas friend a local number in their country. Instead of charging you “international” minutes, it takes the minutes out of your wireless bucket as if you were making a local call (think free nights and weekends or MetroPCS talk whenever you want).
There are no PIN numbers to dial or waiting times to have your call connected. All you do is dial the local number and it rings…and your friend answers! This is the part where the call becomes “free”. In less than 30 seconds, you must tell your friend to hang up. Yes, hang up, while you stay on the line. Then, your friend calls back the local number that showed up on their mobile phone. Instantly, you hear your friend’s voice again and are reconnected. Free.
The free call service with RebTel works only if your friend lives in one of the RebTel countries, which is quite a scope: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the United States.
For those who find the whole having your friend hang up and call their local number buzz too much of a hassle, RebTel offers low rates in international calls. As a matter of fact, when you sign up you receive 10 free welcome minutes and 5 additional minutes for every friend that you sign up.
A question that has been raised is that, when you make a call through RebTel, don’t you get charge for the seconds it takes your friend to hang up and call back? Wouldn’t that mean you need a balance in your account to place the call in the first place? Wrong. If it takes less than 30 seconds, you will not be charged. That’s what the 10 welcome minutes are for, I believe. For those people who take a little longer getting used to the process. But for anything free, most people would bend backwards.
How does it work? RebTel connects the local number you call to the internet in your area, places the call internationally through the internet (kind of like Skype, minus sitting at your computer!), and goes through a local number in your friend’s country. The RebTel service can be used by any mobile phone user to a landline or mobile phone in a RebTel country. Multiple phones can be set up under your account (including your home landline) from which calls can be placed from.
Never dialing a PIN number again or having to recharge a calling card. Dialing directly to your friend in France? Literally, priceless.
