How should I start this blog post? Lets start from the beginning. I am an Austrian living in the UK with friends all over the world. Mainly in Europe. I never called abroad from my mobile or at least I wanted to avoid it. Why? Well my provider Vodafone charges GBP 1.00 per minute and there is no gold coming out of me when my food is digested 😉
In March of this year I found a company called Rebtel. They promise FREE calls from mobiles to mobiles cross country. You need to ask your friend to call you back while you stay on the line they wrote on their website. Bullsh* I thought – Probably I just did not get it. However I did sign up and I thought the normal rates are really competitive. So if I would not ask my friend to call me back I would pay 0.01pence per minute to Austria / Germany
/ Italy etc to a landline and 0.08 pence to a mobile – amazing rates AMAZING 🙂
There was the day I started calling my friends FOR FREE Cross Continent Mobile to Mobile. How did this happen? Well it happened by accident. I called a friend. She lost connection (or hung up on me) and then the computer voice said: If you have asked your friend to call you back stay on the line while your friend calls you back and we connect you.
Then another friend was totally excited (I called to the States) Hey are you in New York? You are in New York 🙂 You did visit me at last. I asked *HU* ? Your number you are calling me from is a New York number. Then I got it. Next call to my parents. Me: “Hey what number do you see on your display?” My parents: “Funny you ask, one from Vienna”. Me: “O.k. hang up – call this number – It will be me on my mobile.” I did not tell my parents that I will be waiting on the line (would have caused confusion) Viola – Rebtel connected us and the call was FREE 🙂 Yippee – This was back in May or so – since I call my parents, my friends, my ex girlfriends and the girls I adore on a regular basis whenever I think of them totally free of charge.
BTW Rebtel just secured some funding of USD 20.000.000,00 so they will probably still be around a long time. If you have friends abroad and you are sick of a high phone bill – give them a try you are crazy if you don’t do it – crazy crazy crazy – or you have a donkey that sh* gold 😉
See here for how it works:
See here for the rates: But again if your friend calls back HIS/HER local number the call is free (you just use your inclusive minutes to your nearest city!!! )