After the recent earthquake that occurred just off the coast of Chile on February 25th, we felt compelled to provide the same support and sympathy for the families and friends affected by this tragic event.

Consequently, we are now lowering the rates effective immediately for all calls to land lines and mobiles in Chile.

There are no strings attached to this new rate and it’s available for existing as well as new Rebtel users.

The old rate to mobiles was 19.9 cents, and the new one is 13.5 cents.

The old rate to landlines was 2.8 cents and the new one is 2.2 cents.

Lastly, to stay updated on the most recent developments in Chile, we recommend using Twitter Search.

Today we have opened up free rooms for conference calls where family, friends and various organization involved in help and relief efforts currently in the three countries specified below can talk to each other for free.

This is not an official Rebtel feature and should not be treated as such. The functionality is present in our system and has solely been activated in light of the recent developments in Haiti, as we have recognised that there might be a possible need for such a service.

A tool like free conference calls can be of great value to help organizations and individuals affected by the developments in Haiti by giving them the option of talking to each other for the purpose of organizing possible relief efforts or even help each other with locating family members.

Please be aware that these conference call rooms are open forums, meaning that everyone present will be able to hear what you say. We urge each and everyone of you that want to make use of this free service to be courteous and show respect for the people effected by the tragic events in Haiti, as well as for the actual cause for which we have set this service up.

Currently there are 10 rooms online with a capacity of 20 simultaneous conference participants in each. Dependending on the interest for this service throughout the course of the weekend, more conference rooms and more local numbers in additional cities will be added.

Access Numbers For Free Conference Calling

USA - San Diego +1 858 225 4176

UK - London +44 20 70788 899

Sweden +46 10 100 4001

Lastly, please note that depending on your mobile phone (or land line) plan from your regular provider, the cost for a local call might be applicable.

We have therefore made the decision to hand out 4,000 voucher codes valid for 10 minutes of free calling each to Haiti. Please submit the voucher code helphaiti on this page to get 10 free minutes to your loved ones to make sure that they are unscathed. There are no strings attached, just call and make sure they are ok.

Your 10 minutes will be valid for 90 days.

We would also like to highlight that the quake has inflicted significant damage to the telecom infrastructure in Haiti. Therefore, calls to some local carriers might be difficult to connect. If your call doesn’t connect instantly, please try again, as officials are continuously working on resolving the problems. You can read more about the outage in this article from Forbes.

Lastly, to stay updated on the most recent developments in Haiti as they happen, please see this link to Twitter Search, which is set up with the hash-tags #Haiti and #Helphaiti.

Computer Calls are great if you want to make Rebtel calls from countries where you don’t have a SIM card or where the regular Rebtel service isn’t available. You initiate the call on the Rebtel website and use your Skype client to talk. As you’re calling directly over the Internet with Rebtel, you don’t have to pay a single cent for connection fees or high per-minute rates to Skype. Only the Rebtel rate.

To put the savings in perspective, the rate for calling a friend in India on their mobile using SkypeOut™ is 9.2¢ per minute. On top of that you also have to pay a connection fee of 7.9¢. Add it all together and you’ll get subtotal of 53.9¢ for a 5 minute call.

If you were to make that same call with our Computer Calls service using the very same client, you only pay the per-minute Rebtel rate to India, which is 1.8¢. There are no connection fees involved and your subtotal amounts to a mere 9¢.

Computer Calls also allow you to get a local number for your friends Skype Name and call them on it from your regular phone. In addition, you can also have all incoming Rebtel calls routed to your Skype client before having them go through to your preferred mobile or land line.

We’ve put together a brief guide to further explain the different features.

Using Computer Calls To Call Rebtel Friends

Go to your contact list on the Rebtel website, click on the local number of the friend you want to call and choose the new “Call from your computer” option.

Your Skype client is launched and you will be connected to your friend. You only pay the Rebtel rate.

Using Computer Calls To Receive Calls

With Computer Calls activated you can choose to receive incoming calls from Rebtel friends in your Skype client. In the settings menu, you can configure if you want Skype to ring for 10, 20 or 30 seconds before the call is automatically forwarded to your regular phone.

If you decide to answer the call on Skype, your friend calling only has to pay the cost for a local call. For you on the receiving end, the call is free.

Calling Friends On Their Skype Name

By adding Skype Names to your Rebtel contacts, you have the option of calling them directly on Skype. As usual, you’ll get a local Rebtel number back that you can save to your phonebook and call from your regular phone.

You only pay the cost for a local call to your carrier. The international part is free of cost.

Mind you, Computer Calls is a service currently in Beta. In other words, there are still a few kinks here and there that we need to iron out. Please bear with us and be sure to let us know on our Get Satisfaction page if you find any bugs that we should be aware of.

First let’s clarify what per minute rounding really is and how it affects you as a user. Minute rounding is the portion of the per minute rate charged for calls with a duration of less then a full minute of call time. Many calling card companies use 3-minute or even 5 minute billing to fraud their users, however the standard rounding in the telecom business is 1-minute billing. With a 1-minute rounding, a full minute is charged for any portion of a minute that is used. In other words, the call time is rounded up to the next full minute. For example, a call with duration of 2 minutes and 10 seconds would be billed for 3 minutes.

The reason why we are moving to 1-minute rounding is because we can then lower our rates even more and become comparable with the standard in the telecom business. We constantly strive to consistently push our rates to new lows for all calling destinations worldwide and this will allow us to do just that.  As a direct testament, we’re kicking things off by lowering the rates to more than 60 calling destination. To see it for yourself, head over to our rates page for more information.

We’d also like to send a big thank you to the equally as nice people over at AT&T.  Not too long ago, AT&T finally came to their senses and decided that is was time to allow iPhone VoIP applications to run on their 3G network.

Shortly, following that very same announcement, we got that pleasant confirmation of approval email from Apple all iPhone developers long for. So again, thank you, AT&T. We couldn’t have done it without you!

Considering it’s our first stab at the iPhone as a platform, we couldn’t be happier with the end result. The app gives all of our users instant access to all the Rebtel features that can be found on our website straight from their iPhone. Check out some screenshots from the app below.

Cheap international calling for our usual super low rates, contact management, payment processing, the ability to make seamless Double Dial calls as well as full access to your account history are a few.

In other words, it’s basically like taking the entire Rebtel website and putting it in your pocket to enjoy whenever you’re out and about and feel the urge to call internationally. Pretty sweet.

The initial response from our existing users as well as all the new ones that have discovered Rebtel for the first time on the App Store has been truly amazing. What’s even more amazing is how much better the app can get from this point on.

With having the first version of the app soaking in the lime light on the digital shelves of the App Store, we’re now able to look towards the future. This is the part where you, the beloved Rebtel community, comes in.

We’ve started a thread on our Get Satisfaction page where everyone can go in and share their ideas for future features that they’d like to see in the next version. What functionality would you like to see that would make the Rebtel app a killer for you? Head over to Get Satisfaction and share your ideas.

Lastly, to check the app head over to the App Store. If you have any questions regarding the the app you can head over to our FAQ.

Once again an operator has decided to block our local numbers for calling. Thanks to all users who were quick to inform us about the problem.

This time it’s the third largest operator in Germany E-Plus. We have contacted E-Plus and asked for an explanation on why they are stopping their own customers from calling a standard local number.

However the reason why E-Plus wants to stop Rebtel is of course the very high margins on their international calling. But it’s a short-sighted way of stopping any threats to their diminishing margins. Their actions violate not only the EU-regulations but are also a breach of E-Plus customers’ contracts. With their rates, lockins and hidden charges they can be 1000% more expensive than Rebtel. Please feel free to compare our rates to their rates..

If you are as upset as we are about this please consider sending an e-mail to the E-Plus support.

To summarize, we are sorry this happened. It shouldn’t have to. Enough said is that it has happened many times before but with over 3 million users Rebtel is currently not being blocked by any operator in the world. Except E-Plus. The reason why we are never blocked is something E-Plus is about to experience when their users start contacting them.

Please follow the latest developments and feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section on this post or follow us on Twitter.

Lastly, if you would be so kind, please help us raise awareness about this problem by digging this post on Digg, retweeting it or perhaps posting it to your Facebook profile.

Thank you and take care!

More:
http://www.eplus.de/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Plus

Update: The person that handle these types of anti-competitive issues in the European Commission is called Viviane Reding. Viviane is the Commissioner for Information Society and Media and we should all make her aware of what is going on. If you have a few minutes to spare, please send her an email on viviane.reding@ec.europa.eu and let her know how you feel.

We have a lot of new cool stuff for you that we’ve been working on for the past year or so and things are finally starting to come together. We’ll have more on that in another post.

Anyways. Today, we’d like to talk a little bit about the recent developments on the front of VoIP applications being (or rather not being) on Apple’s AppStore. In particular one that has been developed by Google and seen immense media attention lately.

If you have an ounce of interest in what’s going on in this little world of ours (the technology and VoIP world that is), you have probably read that Apple made the decision to refuse Google’s latest iPhone application, Google Voice, entry to the AppStore. Now, you might ask yourself why we would dedicate an entire blog post to a company that seemingly starts to emerge as a direct competitor to us? The answer is simple. Sure, Google is a direct competitor with the roll-out of their Voice service. Although, the fact remains that we love Google as a company, their products and everything that they’re trying to do in the VoIP industry. Competition is good and always will be. It forces all companies to think outside of the box and try their utmost to provide their respective markets with a better product.

For a lot of people, Apple’s decision was nothing short of anticipated. Being the eternal optimists that we are, we figured that Apple might reevaluate their position considering their history of disruptive services. We all remember the inception of the iTunes Music Store, right? That was a product that revolutionized an entire industry that was, at that particular time, on life support. Apple were smart enough to recognize that opportunity and give it CPR. After that, we saw the music business basically resurrect and iTunes ultimately became the blueprint for digital music commerce.

Come 2009 and things aren’t quite as chipper as they once were. Apple’s disappointing decisions to go to bed with “the devil” has proven to hinder huge innovation developments in the VoIP industry that literally is standing outside their door knocking and begging to come in.

Now you might think referring to AT&T as “the devil” is a tad bit too harsh. If that’s the case, we feel it’s imperative to take a trip down memory lane to see just how uneager these cartels really are to embrace companies such as ourselves and Google and the subsequent technology we’re trying to bring forward.

Some of you might remember our little run-in with Verizion. Verizon didn’t seem to think that obeying one of the most vital cornerstones of democracy and the american constitution, freedom of speech, was very important.

Then, of course, we had AT&T, which we also went a couple of bare knuckle rounds with.

Last but not least, we had O2, which didn’t think it was in their customers right to use a service like Rebtel’s due to what they claimed were “capacity issues”.

Come on, really?

Since when does calling a local number on a mobile phone in 2009 cause “capacity issues” for one of Europe’s largest wireless service providers?

As you can easily make out, these people don’t exactly have a soft spot for us and honestly, who can really blame them? They’re feeling the heat and have been for a long time. If anything, their actions against us as described above prove that. Truth to be told, it can’t possibly be a good feeling realizing that you live on borrowed time and that your days are truly numbered. That’s some epiphany for you right there.

So, how’s all of this going to unfold? By the looks of it hopefully for the better. As a matter of fact, the US Department of Justice has recently initiated an investigating regarding U.S. telecommunications companies, such as AT&T and Verizon, to clarify wether or not they’re engaging in anti-competitive behavior.

Furthermore, the FCC has also raised some eyebrows of concern regarding the Google Voice rejection and decided to investigate the situation further by sending personal letters to Apple, Google and AT&T. Once thing is for sure, we can’t wait to hear what AT&T writes in their response letter.

Apple themselves have actually also done something rather peculiar that deviates from their regular practice when dealing with the developer community that, little surprising, went completely ballistic after the rejection and talked about going as far as boycotting Apple. Phil Shiller, Senior Vice President of World Wide Product Marketing, personally contacted two different developers that were outraged by the companies recent behavior. This was naturally a nice gesture, but it’s hardly enough to rectify and make up for the de facto damaged already caused.

Ladies and gentleman, the plot thickens.

Due to these recent developments, we announced earlier today that we have made the decision to give away a total of a quarter of a million free minutes to Iran. When Rebtel was founded in 2006, it was built with the vision of shrinking the world, making it a friendlier place, and to bring people from all over the world closer together by making all phone calls local. 3 years later we still stay true to that vision by doing what we believe should be expected of us not only as a company, but also as fellow human beings.

This opportunity to call Iran for no cost is available for all existing users as well as new users. No strings attached.

As a fair use policy, each and everyone that decides to redeem the voucher code will receive 15 minutes of free calls each. New users that are currently not Rebtel users will in addition also receive the usual 5 Welcome Minutes. Once redeemed, the 15 minutes to Iran will be valid for 14 days.

The voucher code will be redeemable starting today, Monday the 22nd of June, and will expire on Monday next week, 29th of June.

If you would like to help us spread the message to raise awareness and make sure as many people as possible get the chance make use of these minutes, please retweet this post with the hashtag #iranelection by clicking the button at the top of this post.

Follow these instructions if you have family or friends in Iran and want to make sure they are well:

Existing Users (15 minutes to Iran)

1. Go to http://www.rebtel.com/en/My-Rebtel/Buy-credit/
2. Click ‘Redeem now’ at the bottom of the page
3. Click the blue Rebtel heart, enter the voucher code iranelection and click ‘Redeem now’
4. Call your loved ones free of cost and make sure they are OK

New Users (15 minutes to Iran + 5 Welcome Minutes

1. Go to http://www.rebtel.com/
2. Click ‘Try Now’ and sign up with Rebtel
3. Go to http://www.rebtel.com/en/My-Rebtel/Buy-credit/
4. Click the blue Rebtel heart, enter the voucher code iranelection and click ‘Redeem now’
5. Call your loved ones free of cost and make sure they are OK

Iran Resources

To follow the developments in Iran on the web, we would like to refer you to the following resources:

- Iran Videos on YouTube

- Iran Images on Flickr

- #iranelection Twitter Search

The Dominican Republic is home turf to a number of the biggest and brightest shining stars that the Major League has to offer. Manny Ramirez, Miguel Tejada, and of course, the New York Yankee’s power-hitting third baseman with the richest contract in baseball history, Alex “A-Rod” Rodriguez, are a few names that need no further introduction.

Starting from today, with a little help from Rebtel, A-Rod and everyone else living in one of our 51 Rebtel Countries are able to make super low-cost (or even completely free) calls back to their friends and family in the Dominican Republic. Regardless if you’re playing baseball or go to college, an extra motivational boost from hearing the voice of friends and family back home is always a good thing.

As the Dominican Republic now is a Rebtel Country, people in, for example New York, are now able to make Smart Calls to friends and family in Santa Domingo. They simply ask their friend – while staying on the line – to hang up and call right back using the Santa Domingo phone number displayed on the screen of their phone. Naturally, this can be done the other way around too.

Lastly, we want everyone to give the Dominican Republic a big warm welcome and wish good look to everyone competing in the Classics!