Rebtel, part 2

I’ve seen that my latest post, where I share my thoughts about the new VoIP players Jajah and Rebtel, has started an interesting discussion all around the blogsphere.

Here are some interesting comments by Phoneboy, Ken and Ted:

Phoneboy:
Now I should say up-front that both Rebtel and Jajah may, in fact, be perfectly fine companies. I certainly don’t have anything against them, personally. However, what I do have a problem with is how they are basically asking me to change my dialing habits to use their services. What’s in it for me? Saving money? That’s just so Voice 1.0.

Ken replies:

I agree with Dameon and Ted, and those who haven’t spoken out - Jajah, Rebtel and the like (they’ve been referred to as “minute stealers” in some posts lately) are doomed to ignominious failure and oblivion. They don’t excite me at all, and I won’t post much about them. They’re like cheap gasoline at best, an analogy I’ll get back to shortly.

… and Ted:

Because I’ve been thinking pretty much the same thing Phoneboy has about these two services, which purport to allow cell phone users to circumvent minutely charges by routing calls through (in the case of Jajah) another independent carrier, as long as the call recipient is also a member of that independent carrier, and as long as there is adequate data service on the phone, and as long as the phone is one of about a half-dozen the carrier supports.

Many others joined this discussion, and I can say that basically it seems that those services don’t convince at all. Om published a poll on this topic too, which demonstrates (hey, among only 179 readers of course) that Jajah convinces more than Rebtel.

Rebtel Vs Jajah
* I will use Rebtel (13%)
* I will use Jajah (31%)
* I will use them both (2%)
* No thanks, passing on both for now (54%)
Total votes cast: 179

To be honest, that’s not completely true and you should better understand by reading the prosecution of this post.
Let’s focus on Rebtel. Jeff offered an interesting point of view in this post. He points out that Rebtel’s long term challenge is aiming to the so called “mobile disintermediation”, that’s a subject that I know very well.

With their current service offering, Rebtel is using SIP URIs to manage the legs of their customer’s phone calls. Now imagine what happens when one of their customers who switched from using a regular cell phone to using a dual-mode phone is connected to a wi-fi network and receives an inbound phone call? Rebtel gets to deliver the call and avoid having any mobile connection charges for at least one leg of the call. This becomes the next phase of mobile disintermediation.

I exchanged some emails with Jeff on this topic, and in a long term perspective I well understand the big picture.

Moreover, this morning I had the opportunity to speak with Greg Spector, Rebtel’s marketing director.
It has been a very useful phone call, both for me and for him (I guess).

He clearly explained which their target market is and why people should choose Rebtel’s service.
The main mistake you can make while visiting Rebtel’s website it’s that you think it’s a service targeted for the whole consumer market. Well, it’s not.
It targets a specific market niche (now), made of people who use their mobile phone every day and call home or their friend continuosly, since they work/live abroad. Greg said there are millions of people like those in the 35 countries they’re working in.
Besides, I undertsood (just now…) that with 1$ a week you can get as many phone numbers as you want, you don’t have any limit. Not so bad.

In general, I believe there’s a lack in terms of communication on Rebtel’s website. I realized that while speaking with Greg and, since I’ve seen many VoIP bloggers arising the same questions I arised, I believe I’m right. Greg generally agreed with this point, so I think they’re going to fix these issues, for a better understanding by the side of any end user and the VoIP community.

By the way: I called him from my mobile to his Stockholm fixed line. I paid just 0,15 cents, because according to my plan, I just pay a flat rate of 15 cents / call for any call to Europe, US and Canada. Our took about 30 minutes (more or less).

What if I had called him by using Rebtel ?
A quick calculation:
a) Greg doesn’t hang up: I’d have paid 30 x 0,019 + 0,12 + 30 x 0,02 (sweden) = about 1, 374 €
where 0,019 is the cost per minute to call a local number in Italy (one of the cheapest rates), 0,12 the call setup fee (Telecom Italia) and 0,02 (including VAT) is the interconnect cost which Rebtel charges for calling a landline in Sweden.

b) Greg hangs up and calls back: 30 x 0,019 + 0,12 = about 0,69 €

Of course, I’m not a target Rebtel’s user.

I’ll stay tuned.

Technorati Tags: greg spector, jajah, jeff pulver, ken camp, om malik, phoneboy, rebtel, ted wallingford