Rebtel Open in China
Written by martyndavies on Dec 24, 2007 - 10:49 AM
Rebtel have recently announced that they are open for business in China. Many telecom companies have tried and failed to get a bridgehead in China, so this is certainly something for them to trumpet. They will be offering International calling to/from mobiles at around 2c / min.
Rebtel's system relies on having a pool of local numbers for each served city around the globe. When you want to call a friend who is in another country, you basically ask Rebtel to allocate a number in your city, that will make the other guy's phone ring, and then you place a local call. Variations of this technique are used by other companies (Eqo springs to mind), coupling local PSTN numbers to a private backbone network that will use VoIP and/or least cost routing to get the low-cost long distance element.
They also add the slightly confusing twist that if (as the call receiver) you hangup within 30s and call back to the caller, then the call will be free end-to-end. As with many of these international calling disruption techniques (for example callback systems such as Sim4travel), once you stray away from the way a "standard" phonecall works, you dramatically reduce the ease-of-use and start to alienate customers.
You can read more on how this works at Rebtel from Luca and Aswath, or the view from 30,000 feet from Rebtel themselves.
Rebtel's system relies on having a pool of local numbers for each served city around the globe. When you want to call a friend who is in another country, you basically ask Rebtel to allocate a number in your city, that will make the other guy's phone ring, and then you place a local call. Variations of this technique are used by other companies (Eqo springs to mind), coupling local PSTN numbers to a private backbone network that will use VoIP and/or least cost routing to get the low-cost long distance element.
They also add the slightly confusing twist that if (as the call receiver) you hangup within 30s and call back to the caller, then the call will be free end-to-end. As with many of these international calling disruption techniques (for example callback systems such as Sim4travel), once you stray away from the way a "standard" phonecall works, you dramatically reduce the ease-of-use and start to alienate customers.
You can read more on how this works at Rebtel from Luca and Aswath, or the view from 30,000 feet from Rebtel themselves.
Reply from ygeffens on Dec 24, 2007 - 12:36 PM
| Quote: |
| As with many of these international calling disruption techniques (for example callback systems such as Sim4travel), once you stray away from the way a "standard" phonecall works, you dramatically reduce the ease-of-use and start to alienate customers.
|
I used Rebtel (one year ago), and I found it far from user friendly.
I'd give up the "free" part just to make it easier. I don't mind paying 2ct/min. That's approx. 1 euro/hour. I call that free...
Reply from dean on Dec 24, 2007 - 05:48 PM
| Quote: |
| That's approx. 1 euro/hour. I call that free... |
I'm with you. I'd rather pay something and get what I want (I just want to pick up the phone and dial a number/URI).
I don't think we're alone either. As long as I'm not being ripped off I'm quite happy to pay for my service.
Dean
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