Rebtel, a Swedish VoIP company founded in 2006, has just launched a new service called Rebel Calling that looks to cut out the telecom operator middlemen and provide what they’re calling, “unlimited and free app-to-app [international] calling without the need for an internet connection.”
The reason international calling is expensive boils down to one simple figure: The cost of termination. Termination, or the act of a telecommunications carrier routing a phone call through its systems, is the reason it costs $0.19 cents a minute to call a Brazilian phone number on AT&T, the reason it costs $1.74 a minute to call an Afghani number on Verizon and the reason it costs $0.19 a minute to call an Israeli number on Sprint.
“We saw an opportunity to create a new product…that is able to change the way international calling is done,” Rebtel CEO Magnus Larsson said. “We’re calling it internet free calling, because that’s [where] the stability [comes from]. It’s actually kind of fun when you’re talking about being an app company and being internet free.”
The cost of international calling springs from multiple players needing to be involved to terminate a phone call to another country. When an international call is placed, your carrier has to hand off the call to its international gateway provider, which then hands it off to its counterpart in the country you’re calling, which then hands the phone call off to the carrier of the phone number you’ve dialed, who then finally connects your call to the phone you’re trying to reach.
Rebtel’s new service doesn’t need an internet connection because it uses phone lines to connect calls, instead of VoIP-like services such as Viber, Skype or Whatsapp. When you place a call using Rebel Calling, Rebtel calls you locally before funneling your phone call to the area that you’re calling to, in effect hijacking local numbers to maneuver around termination costs.
“We have a focus, and the focus is to crack international calling,” Rebtel CMO Fredrik Wrahme said. “Most VoIP apps suck. People are tired of [calls] cracking up when you walk down a street. We wanted to combine the pricing democracy of [VoIP] with the stability of telecom operators.”
Think of it as calling into a conference call. If you call into a local conference call, and the person you’re trying to reach does the same, and the two conference calls happen to be connected for free, the cost of international calling is equivalent to calling a local number.
“We’re not a VoIP company,” Larsson said. “We’re benefiting from the stability and the quality in the mobile infrastructure, and we’re able to make international calling [affordable], with a subscription model of a dollar a month for unlimited calling.”
The Rebel Calling service is temporarily free between Rebtel users until the end of 2016, at which point the subscription fee is only $1/month. However, the Rebel Calling service requires that both people have the Rebtel app installed on their smartphone and have both verified their phone number with Rebtel.
Rebtel can also be used to call international landlines and non-Rebel connected mobile numbers, but Rebtel users will either have to add ‘World Credits’ to their account or subscribe to a monthly fee. The cost varies depending on what country is being called, but Brazil costs $0.09 a minute to call, Afghanistan costs $0.25 a minute to call and Israel costs either $0.03 a minute (or $7/month).
Rebtel is currently available for download for both iOS and Android devices.
