Catshanghai

I have started using a VOIP service called Rebtel , which offers cheaper and more convenient Internet based phonecalls than Skype or Gizmo5, which I wrote about last year. See this post.

Rebtel lets you make calls between China and the UK landlines for 1.9 US cents a minute plus 1 jiao a minute for local calls. Calls to the US are even less. A 15 minute call cost me about 35 US cents, which is about half the cost of SkypeOut.

Rebtel is a little fiddly to setup. You have to buy credit and add phone contacts. Then it gets much easier. International contacts are given local numbers that you can add into your cellphone address book. I have been using Gizmo5 for nearly a year, but Gizmo makes you open a separate application and initiate a callback for every conversation. Rebtel saves you from such a chore. You call the local number in your address book and it gets routed to their overseas number. The only drawback is that you have to use the Rebtel website to set up the contact number before you call them the first time.

Calls to international cellphones are still expensive, although they are cheaper than Skype and Gizmo5.

Phonecall quality has been very good. It is also possible to make free calls to other Rebtel members.

A side benefit is that a local number is assigned to you for each country where you have a contact. I am not sure if this means contacts can use this number to call you back, but I was able to use this to setup an account for Jott.com that is only available to Internet users with a North American telephone number.

I am sure that the tumbling cost of telecommunications will mean that I will soon be writing about a better alternative as identical services come and go.