Rebtel: Cheap (free) international calling

A few posters on the Kogan thread made comments RE the importance/benefit of having some international calling in their price plans. Rather than reply to all I thought I'd throw up a quick post.

For international calls I use the Android app 'Rebtel'. This intercepts any international calls and routes them either over wifi/cellular data or via a standard national rate cost call to a local Rebtel service number. Rebtel then calls the international party at a good rate (you pay just for the 'last leg' of the call, effectively) or will try to connect you for free should the recipient be another Rebtel user with a data connection (becomes a VOIP call). The cost, if any, is called off against your prepaid Rebtel credit.

Now, whilst lots of companies do similar things Rebtel does have another ace up it's sleeve which is personally why I use it…

Once you have called someone and are paying for the 'last leg' bit of the call your recipient can hang up to terminate the call and then call their local Rebtel service number whilst you remain on the line. Providing you stayed on the line you are reconnected but now you're not even paying for the international bit of the call - both parties are just effectively making 'local rate' outbound calls to their local Rebtel service centres. If both you and your friends have unlimited minutes or free calls to landlines (which is common in many countries) then this is a great way to get completely free calls whilst still using your voice carrier and not data.

I probably spend about an hour a day or so most days speaking to my family in the UK and mainland Europe this way and haven't paid for a call in months and months. An unlimited phone plan and Rebtel is a great way to stay in touch for very little cost.

I don't think that the 'call back' feature of Rebtel is particulary widely known even though it's on their website. They also have an international SMS feature which is OK if you need to text a dumbphone - for recipients with smartphones I still stick to WhatsApp Messenger.

Hope the info helps, Any questions I'll try to answer or explain further.

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Comments

  • i like this post!

  • I have an offer to get USD 10 calling credit for USD 1 for new users only. PM me for the link.

    • That's called referral - any rebtel user can provide that.

  • I have been using rebtel but I did not know about the new method.
    Can you provide the link of the special method you detailed? where other party calls back at rebtel service number, while you remain on call?

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