Cheap International Calls - A Few Rebtel Secrets

If you are already familiar with Rebtel's cheap international calls, below you will find a few secrets for decreasing your phone bills even further (and if you are not, you can find some Rebtel highlights here).

After my first acquaintance with Rebtel I've continued to be unaware of many of the real advantages the service offers for a long time. In order to save you from discovering all of Rebtel's benefits yourself, I am going to list several of its not so obvious treasures so you can make really cheap international phone calls. I say "really" because after reading these tips, you will be often able to make even cheaper phone calls with Rebtel than you've expected. Many of Rebtel's users remain unaware of these possibilities for quite some time after they've signed up with the service so go through the list below and use every hint you can to your full advantage.

So here are the tips that result in direct saving of money when making cheap international calls with Rebtel.

Use a voucher code to double your deposit

Sometimes, for promotional reasons, Rebtel offers voucher codes so you can double your first deposit. For example, you can turn your deposit of $10 USD into $20 or your initial $25 USD into actual $50 which you can spend for making cheap international phone calls twice more often.

Use international collect calls to speak even cheaper

The so called collect calls are based on a very simple idea that could lower your rates multiple times but most likely you won't be aware of it when you land on Rebtel's website for the first time. What is the actual trick? Let's use an example. If you live in the United States and you want to call a friend in the United Kingdom, Rebtel's fee for this call would be 14.9 cents/minute. And you probably wouldn't know that the rate for calling vice versa (from the UK to the US) is just 1.5 cents/minute which is actually 10 times cheaper. And here is the good news: your friend from the UK could call you in the US by using a Rebtel number without even being a customer of the Rebtel's service. How could this happen?

If you are a Rebtel user, you can give your friend the Rebtel number that will be assigned to your real phone number by the service so when your friend in the UK uses the assigned number, the call will be made with a rate of 1.5 cents/minute instead of 14.9 cents/minute. Your friend would have to pay for the local call and you should cover the international part of 1.5 cents/minute. In fact, if you are in the USA, anyone that lives in another Rebtel supported country will be able to call you without even being a Rebtel customer and paying just the local fees (in case local minutes are not included in their monthly plans for free) while you're covering the international part of the call for just 1.5 cents per minute. Of course, this example could be applied to many other countries and you can check the actual rates between them with the help of the box on the left in the beginning of the article. It's a very simple trick but it gives you the opportunity to make really cheap international calls by just changing the direction of the call.

Make free calls directly from your mobile phone or landline

Another money saving feature of Rebtel's is that you can make free calls under certain circumstances. And you don't need a computer with Skype for this. You can talk with your friends that have Rebtel accounts for free if you have an iPhone, Android or BlackBerry phone. You will have to download a software application in order to use this feature though. You can also make "free" international calls even if you don't have Android, iPhone or BlackBerry phone but you should cover the local part of the call in this case.

Use Rebtel to avoid international roaming charges

To maximize your benefits from Rebtel you can use the service to lower the charges for your roaming calls when you are abroad. You can read more about this opportunity here but in brief, you have to do the following. You should buy an international SIM card (which just means a local SIM card for the country you'll stay in) and when you enter the number of this new SIM card in your Rebtel account, you will get a Rebtel number for it. You have to give this Rebtel number to your friends and family in your home country. Now, when they make calls to you using this number you will have to pay only the Rebtel fee for the international call instead of paying any roaming charges to your mobile provider. This is so cause the international part of the call will be routed between the new Rebtel number in your home country (where your regular cell phone provider operates) and your "international" SIM card via Internet. And the good news again is your friends and family do not have to be Rebtel customers for calling you.

These have been all of the hints I can recall currently for using Rebtel's cheap international calls from either landline or mobile phone to their full potential. I hope they will be helpful to anybody wanting to save a few more bucks with Rebtel's voip calls and I wish you cheaper calling.

Cheap International Calls - A Few Rebtel Highlights

I'm going to list below a few highlights that make Rebtel's cheap international calling service convenient and easily recommendable for trial and usage. If you're already familiar with Rebtel's service you probably don't need to continue reading this article but you can still check my hints for getting the most of your Rebtel subscription. With these "secret" weapons you will most likely make the "cheap international calls" service you've been already using to cost even cheaper.

Here is how Rebtel works in brief. After you sign up with the service, you receive a local phone number for each of your contacts so when you dial to your friends, you will be practically making a local call. Rebtel routes the international part of the call via Internet so you pay to your landline or mobile provider just for the local call plus a small fee to Rebtel for their service. You don't need any phone cards, software downloads, computers and headsets for this and you can make cheap international calls from either your mobile or landline phone.

And now, a few interesting points that you should have in mind when deciding whether to sign up with Rebtel.

There is a trial free call.

You have the possibility to test the service Rebtel provides by using the free trial call they offer before paying them. If you have any doubts about the quality of the service or any other concern about Rebtel's cheap international calls this is the way to go.

No phone cards, downloads, computers or headsets

Unlike other similar services, you don't have to buy any calling cards or use a computer and download software in order to use Rebtel's service for making cheap international phone calls. You do not have to use a headset either. Actually, there is a case when you need to download a software application but it is intended for use on your phone rather than on your PC and it's just for the purpose of making free calls to your friends which also own Rebtel accounts. You can read more about Rebtel's free international calling on the aforementioned page with money saving tips.

Use landline or mobile phone

You are not only relieved from using computers and calling cards but you can use either your cell phone or landline phone and the service will work fine independently of your choice. The same is valid for your friends on the other side of the line. It is a VoIP call service that can be used directly from your phone in any moment you like meaning you can make cheap international mobile calls directly on the street or anywhere else.

15 million users company

If this has any significance to you, Rebtel is a winner of several awards for mobile phone services and applications. More importantly, they have more than 15 millions of users in 50 countries around the world.

So, after sharing the above Rebtel highlights for your convenience, now it's time for the tips that could lower your international calling charges. Find them here: Cheap International Calls - A Few Rebtel Secrets

Avoid International Roaming Charges with Rebtel

Since I've been recently abroad, I want to share with you a cool way to avoid the usual high roaming charges. With this idea, international roaming calls you make will be charged as local calls and this is possible with the help of Rebtel's cheap international calling service. If you already have a Rebtel account, you probably know the basic principles of their service but for the rest, I am going to make a short introduction of Rebtel before delving into particulars about how to cut your international roaming charges.

Rebtel offer a service that allows you to make cheap international calls by calling a preliminary assigned local number instead of your contact's foreign number. When you create a Rebtel account you have to add your international contacts in it so the service can assign a unique local number for each of your friends or relatives. This means that if you are in the United Kingdom, Rebtel will create UK local numbers for all of your contacts which you can use forever from then on. The trick is that when you call one of these local numbers, you are still able to talk with your foreign friends but the international part of the call is accomplished over the Internet. The result is that you only pay for the local call and a small charge for the service provided by Rebtel. As far as I know Rebtel's service is provided in about 50 countries in the world and you can check their calling rates from country to country by using the box on the left.

Now about the mobile roaming. In order to use Rebtel to your advantage while being abroad, you will need to purchase a local SIM card on arrival in the foreign country. It doesn't have to be some special international roaming SIM card but the one offering the cheapest calling rates for making local calls in the particular country. Having a local SIM card enables you to use a cell phone calls provider originating in the foreign country and thus you can avoid the hefty international roaming charges that your domestic provider normally charge. When you buy the new SIM card, you have to add it to your Rebtel account and new local numbers will be automatically created for your previously saved contacts. Now, you can dial to any of your contacts back home by using these new local numbers and the charges for the international part of the call will be avoided in a way similar to the already described before. So, this was the easier part.

The trickier task (if you want to achieve it at all) is to receive cheaper calls from your relatives or friends when you're abroad. In order to call you they have three options: either to dial your old number; to call to the number of your new local SIM card; or to create a Rebtel account themselves and call to your new number without paying for an international call by using the standard Rebtel service. Of course, the best option for them (without even knowing that you're abroad) would be to dial your usual old number. But in order to avoid the international roaming fees in this case you have to forward your old number to an assigned by Rebtel number to your new foreign local SIM card. Thus, the international part of the call would be practically between your old number and your new SIM card but since this forwarding will be serviced by Rebtel, you will avoid the roaming charges for it. Now, this might seem like an additional trouble (although it involves nothing more than just entering the number of your new foreign SIM card into your Rebtel account in order to get an assigned Rebtel number for it and just one forwarding from your domestic number to the assigned new number after that) but the good news is you can simply ignore the task of making the incoming roaming calls cheaper cause the prices for them are significantly lower than the prices for outgoing calls.

Having said the above, we should stress that this solution may not be always better than using just the conventional international roaming service of your domestic mobile provider. For example, if you plan to call back home only once or just to receive a couple of short calls from your relatives at home, using your usual phone number won't lead to very high roaming charges. Yet in other cases you can save considerably by using Rebtel's service abroad. Some proper usages would include:

• staying abroad for a long period of time;
• making a lot of calls back home over a long or even a short period of time;
• making (even a few) very long calls to your home country.

Usually, since the international roaming charges are in times lower for receiving incoming calls than for making outgoing ones, if you only plan to receive calls, probably you don't have to bother for the roaming charges too much. If you intend to initiate calls yourself, it's good to consider the Rebtel option. You should check their prices from the country you're visiting to your own country and also the prices of the local SIM cards in the country you will temporarily reside in. Having both in mind, you should be able to make the best decision for your particular situation.

Of course, even if you don't plan to use international roaming a lot, you can still create a Rebtel account in case you don't have one yet cause you can always use it for making cheap international calls even when you are home (which is Rebtel's service primary intention anyway). And remember that calling to international landline phones is up to tens of times cheaper than the calls to international mobile phones so Rebtel can bring you even higher savings in this area.

If you are further interested in Rebtel, you can find a few Rebtel highlights here and several tips for making even cheaper international calls here.

Cheap International Phone Calls - Rebtel

I've come across Rebtel's service recently and it seems like something that is worth writing about. The company offers very cheap call prices and it has several million customers already - a good share of the international calling market.

Rebtel is a VoIP provider that offers cheap international phone calls via your mobile or landline phone. Compared to other long distance phone services it is up to 90% cheaper. Rebtel offers a good customer support although you may always want more from a company's support guys. Rebtel also provides a free first call for new customers - a good sign for any service in my opinion.

The Rebtel service offers a new technology on international phone calls market. It does not require any downloads or any computers in order to use it. The method works by using local numbers in both "caller" and "called" countries and realizing the international connection over VoIP. This means that the user pays only for the local part of the call and not for the international phone call. In addition, and this is where Rebtel is different from many other phone call services, you do not need any complementary software or hardware, any PINs or whatever. All that you need is your mobile or landline phone. This makes Rebtel service really great compared to calling cards or other VoIP services.

How does it work exactly?

You give your phone number to Rebtel so they know when you are calling. You also provide Rebtel with your international friend's phone number and Rebtel gives you a corresponding local number that is unique for each of your friends. You get these unique numbers only once so you can save the numbers to your mobile phone and use them as many times as you want in the future. Now, you just make a call from your regular phone to your friend's local number (the one Rebtel gave you) and the rest is done by Rebtel service which routes you directly to your friend's international number.

Rebtel also assigns a Rebtel number to your real phone number so other Rebtel users can make free calls to you. Of course, you can also call for free other Rebtel users.

The Rebtel website is user friendly and available in several language versions. The Rebtel service is available for calling in more than 50 countries (check them on the Rebtel website). It could be used with any carrier and you can make phone calls to any country in the world.

It seems Rebtel aims at cheapest international phone call prices so they offer promotions quite often and they regularly lower phone call prices down.

So, at the end you have quite a lot of pro's to choose Rebtel if you make international phone calls quite often - Rebtel offers cheap international calls; you can use Rebtel from any landline, VoIP or mobile phone in any Rebtel country where there is a phone connection; Rebtel users can call for free other Rebtel users; and you do not need anything in addition to your existing mobile or landline phone. Take also the "first phone call for free" offer and you have really a service worth stopping by in the face of Rebtel.

For more information about Rebtel's cheap international phone calls you can read these Rebtel highlights and our tips for making even cheaper international calls. If you are interested in avoiding high international roaming charges check this article. Otherwise, just look for another review in the Review Maze.