Dirty Cheap and Free International Phone Calls with Rebtel

The economic crisis is the reality that strikes the countries and regions. However, many families do not feel the personal pain before they are directly affected. Now, that is our turn – my wife lost her job. And I had to review our budgets to save as much as possible on the unneeded charges. One of the areas of consideration is international phone bills. As result of detailed investigation, I have found very attractive offering from Rebtel, which I would like to share with you. Technically, Rebtel review has all rights to get posted on the Web Freebies blog, because company gives you several ways to make free calls, including first trial 5-minutes call as soon as you sign for the account, even before you charge it with any funds.

But that is not much as you understand, and you can find better deals all around. What makes the service special is its cheap pricing, which I found more attractive than other services and calling cards.

The concept is not absolutely new, but is still quite fresh. With Rebtel you post the phone number of a friend in another country, and you are given a local number, which can be assigned permanently for the same person. You then save this number on your mobile (I do not have mobile 2 section, so I saved all Rebtel numbers under pager – nobody has pagers anymore anyway) so you can call your friend whenever you want, for a fraction of your normal international rate. Now, if your friend also has Rebtel, you can call each other for absolutely free. First, call your friend on their Rebtel number. Then, ask your friend to call you back. Tell them to use the number shown on their phone screen. From there, stay on the line. In a few seconds your friend will join you back on the call.

Note that you can use Rebtel from any cellular, VoIP or land-line telephone. Quality is impressive; I could not make any difference from the regular phone call in terms of voice perception or background noise.

There is one more way to make free international calls, and the related savings might be already big. Call your friend on your local number. When your friend answers, ask them to hang up within 10 seconds, and call you back while you stay on the line. You'll be connected after you hear a short sound. The international part of the call will be free. It sounds weird but it works. Don’t forget that you and your friend also pay your operator for local calls. (If you and your friend both have inclusive minutes with your contracts, then these calls will be free.) You and your friend must both live in one of the 51 Rebtel countries. To enjoy this freebie, your friend may not necessary be a Rebtel subscriber at all.

Now, I plan vacation. Rebtel can help me there as well.  I will carry with me a GSM phone with a SIM card in the country I am visiting, and I am going to set it up as your preferred number for the service to work as it is intended.  Now, all the USA numbers I need to call will be converted to local numbers in the country I am traveling in.  When I get home, I’ll simply change my preferred phone again and my numbers will change back to local numbers in USA again. 

Some examples of Rebtel Rates:

• ·         USA to China: $0.019/minute for landline or mobile.
• ·         USA to India: $0.039/minute for landline or mobile.
• ·         USA to Russia: $0.019/minute for landline and $0.069/minute for mobile.

Sign up on the webpage: http://www.rebtel.com/u/nesher

Spread a word about the Rebtel services, and you can even get free phone calls yourselves if your contact signs up through your referral link - you get $10 worth phone calls for each new subscriber. 

31 best VOIP service offerings: saving on phone bills

VoIP is an acronym for Voice over Internet Protocol, or in more common terms phone service over the Internet. If you have a reasonable quality Internet connection you can get phone service delivered through your Internet connection instead of from your local phone company, or in addition to your traditional phone service. VoIP service providers usually offer better rates than traditional phone companies, but sometimes do not offer common phone services as 911 services, phone directory listings, or 411 services.

If you think about free VoIP services, you realize that none of them are actually completely free. Even in the best hypothetical case in which the VoIP provider does not charge you at all, you still pay for your broadband Internet connection. So, the goal is not to achieve completely free calls to all destinations, but to use the VoIP operator that suits your needs best. Most VoIP companies will let you talk for free in their own network but will charge you for making any outside calls.

The main way for free VoIP calls companies is to offer free calls inside their own network and also towards other specially selected destinations. Using this tactic users are drawn to make calls to free destinations and afterwards purchase credits to make calls towards paid destinations.

If you take Skype for example, one of the most popular VoIP services on the market, you will see that you can initiate conversations with other PC users of Skype free of charge. Of course, this is an advantage for long distance calls, as there is no fee for calls inside the Skype network. But if you want to make calls to regular landlines, you will have to pay. You can make free phone calls on a PC to PC basis using the Skype software, and the number of users on the Skype network is continuously growing. On the other hand if you want to reach someone that doesn’t have a PC or an Internet connection, you’ll have to pay the required fees.

Raketu applied a different approach, offering free phone calls to landlines in 42 countries and live video television. But, you have to pay $9.95 up front in order to use their free services. This security deposit is used as a credit if you happen to call destinations that are not on the free call list.

If you are in the pursuit of a real cost free VoIP service you can use something like voipCheap that allows you to make free calls to PC’s and regular phone lines. It also includes many destinations outside USA and Canada that can be called without paying a cent. The downside is that you have a limited number of 300 minutes that you can use each week, per IP Address. If you talk more than the included 300, you are required to pay for further calls. And, you are also required to pay for calls outside of the destinations listed on the free call list.

I have prepared the Rating List with 15 best VoIP service offerings on the market with brief description, access links, and rating:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-26054-voip-communication--free-services.aspx

Sources and Additional Reading:
http://www.tech-faq.com/free-voip.shtml
http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/