Dennis's dashboard

Dennis replied on November 15, 2009 13:15 to the question "How to make the free international call to India?" in Rebtel:

Free calls are only possible between Rebtel countries. There are 50+ Rebtel countries, but India isn't one of them.

http://www.rebtel.com/en/Rates/Rebtel...

Dennis replied on November 15, 2009 12:42 to the question "Does rebtel count as local calls on tmobile Unlimited plan?" in Rebtel:

The Rebtel numbers you are dialing are USA numbers; they'll never be charged as international calls by your phone company since from your phone company's point-of-view they aren't international.

If calls to the Rebtel numbers came out of your inclusive minutes on your old T-Mobile plan then I'm pretty positive that they'll be covered by the unlimited plan. There's no reason they wouldn't be, the numbers you are calling are normal US numbers.

Dennis replied on November 08, 2009 01:45 to the question "How do I change the preferred number on my account?" in Rebtel:

When you go to Settings->Manage Your Phones you should see the current preferred number plus the number you added (the latter under the "Your other numbers" heading). Beside the number you added will be a "Make preferred" link. Click on that link and it will become the preferred number.

Dennis replied on November 02, 2009 03:30 to the problem "Could you please remove the advertisement before making the call connection" in Rebtel:

No, my guess would be he's referring to the "Rebtel will now connect your
call" (or something like that) announcement you hear before the ringing tone when you make a collect call. That isn't instructing you about anything you couldn't guess if you instead heard silence followed by the ringing tone, with the advantage of the latter being that everyone understands silence followed by a ringing tone while not everyone necessarily understands "Rebtel will now connect your call". Normal phone calls don't have a voice announcement before the ringing tone, so one can see why this might be a bit confusing.

Since the only thing the announcement tells you that you might not know without it is that it is Rebtel which is connecting the call, I can see why one might call it an "advertisement". I guess the announcement might have some other purpose, but I don't know what it is.

Dennis Ferguson

Dennis replied on October 31, 2009 09:22 to the question "How does call back free work?" in Rebtel:

Not quite. If you (in the US) add his HK number to your account you will get a US number like +1.641.123.5567 which, when you dial it, will ring his HK phone. In addition he will get an HK number like +852.3050.0299 which, when he dials it, will ring your US phone. Each of you gets a local (to you) number to use.

Dennis replied on October 29, 2009 05:33 to the question "use US cell phone in canada to call US" in Rebtel:

You can, but I don't think it will do anything useful. First, in my experience, it will complain that you are calling a Rebtel number not in your country every time you call (though if you wait it will connect the call anyway). Second, I know of no US cell phone plan which makes it cheaper to call Canadian numbers when roaming in Canada than it is to just call directly back to the US. If your plan includes free Canada roaming (Verizon has plans like this) you can call the US, as well as Canada, free, otherwise you'll pay the same (high) price to call US and Canada numbers.

Dennis Ferguson

Dennis replied on October 25, 2009 11:45 to the question "Free roaming UK to USA" in Rebtel:

Rebtel can sometimes do the call forwarding but it isn't an officially supported part of their service, doesn't work in every country, and the way you need to set it up is a bit odd (to me, at least). I know it can (or could, I haven't needed it for a while) be done in the UK, but I think you'll need to send email to Rebtel's customer service see if they'll help you set it up.

Dennis Ferguson

Dennis replied on October 24, 2009 02:24 to the question "Free call in 2 blue countries ?" in Rebtel:

The call is free (of Rebtel charges) only when both parties have called into Rebtel for the call. To accomplish this when you call your friend with Rebtel, your friend must hang up that call and then call back on the Japan Rebtel number. If your friend calls you via the Japan Rebtel number, you must hang up and call back on the Singapore Rebtel number.

If you can manage to do this (within 10 seconds; beyond that Rebtel will charge for the first minute) Rebtel won't charge you anything for the call. That doesn't necessarily make the call "free", since you both will have to pay your phone companies whatever they charge for each of you to call the local Rebtel numbers, but if you both have flat rate local calling, or mobile phone plans with many minutes, the call might not cost you anything extra.

Dennis Ferguson

Dennis replied on October 21, 2009 01:26 to the question "Google Voice and Rebtel - a great potential combo" in Rebtel:

When I tried this (quite a while ago, when Google Voice was Grand Junction) the trouble I had was that Google Voice wanted you to type numbers on the phone when it called, but Rebtel doesn't seem to send the DTMF tones on incoming calls (perhaps to prevent you from accepting collect calls). Because of this there didn't seem to be any way to make it work.

Dennis replied on October 21, 2009 01:22 to the question "main account number change" in Rebtel:

Do (1). Add the new number when you get it, make the new number the preferred number and then delete the old number from the account.

A comment on the question "Can't log in, Page cannot be loaded, CORRECT login info" in Rebtel:

I don't use Magicjack, and I can't see how that would be related either. I can tell you that the last time I logged in before the problem started I got a pop-up on top of the contacts page asking me if +1650353xxxx was a local number for me. That had never happened before. Also, the account this happened on has a lot of contacts compared to the one which had no problem. – Dennis, on October 20, 2009 01:45

Dennis replied on October 19, 2009 02:50 to the question "Can't log in, Page cannot be loaded, CORRECT login info" in Rebtel:

I got that message late Friday evening (US west coast time) on one of the two accounts I have, but by Saturday night it was working again.

Dennis replied on October 16, 2009 20:44 to the question "How can I add 4 more numbers to the same account to call from." in Rebtel:

Log in to your account, go to

Settings -> Manage Your Phones

and click on "enter your number".

Dennis replied on October 16, 2009 17:05 to the idea "Add a callback system" in Rebtel:

You can certainly call those numbers (or even your home Rebtel numbers if you want to avoid having to type in the number you are calling), but you'll spend the first 30 seconds of each call typing in your home number and PIN, and you'll be paying the mobile network for an international call from the mobile. I'd prefer not have to type in my number+PIN before every call, and I'd prefer to pay Rebtel for an international call to the mobile. Callback would do the latter.

Dennis replied on October 15, 2009 22:03 to the idea "Add a callback system" in Rebtel:

This would also be a nice way to use Rebtel from a non-Rebtel country.

Dennis started following the idea "Add a callback system" in Rebtel.

A comment on the question "I need a local number to call to use your service...." in Rebtel:

If your registered phone is Canadian, do US area codes appear in the drop-down menu?

It doesn't do that in the the opposite direction, when you have a US phone but want to use Canada local numbers. I have a US phone which roams for free in Canada, but the Toronto area code doesn't appear in the drop-down menu unless I register a Canadian phone and make it preferred, and even then I get a message about not being in the same country when I call the Toronto Rebtel numbers from my US phone.

Dennis Ferguson – Dennis, on October 15, 2009 21:50

Dennis replied on October 15, 2009 21:36 to the question "transfering credit from old account to new account" in Rebtel:

It probably would have been better for you to have added the new number to your old Rebtel account rather than creating a new one. I don't think it will work now, but if this happens to you again you might logging into your Rebtel account, going to

Settings -> Manage your phones

and adding the new number there. Once the new number is added you can delete the old number.

For your current problem, however, I'll bet they ask you to send email to customerteam@rebtel.com describing the problem and telling them your old and new phone numbers.

Dennis Ferguson

Dennis shared an idea in Rebtel on October 02, 2009 21:19:

Could Rebtel remember previously verified phones?

Rebtel currently allows 5 numbers to be associated with an account, a number which in my experience is more than adequate for phones which are active at once. I travel a bit, however, and have a collection of local SIMs (more than 5) which I use when I'm away. When I leave on a trip I hence need to remove one of the numbers I won't be using and add the number I will be using when I get where I'm going.

I don't mind doing this. What I do mind is the need to re-verify these numbers each time I add one back. While it is often much more convenient to add the number before I leave, so it is available as soon as I get there, the need to take an incoming call for verification means that either I can't re-verify the phone before I go (because it won't roam) or that I need to answer an often expensive verification call while roaming.

I'm pretty sure Rebtel remembers numbers previously associated with the account since if I remove a number and then add it back I get back the same number assignments that I had before even if I don't want them (e.g. the older London Rebtel numbers, or US numbers assigned prior to Rebtel having numbers in my local area code). This appearing to be the case, could Rebtel not also remember numbers which had been previously verified with my account and not make me do it over (and over and over) again?

I may have complained about this before but it is bugging me again.

Dennis asked a question in Rebtel on October 02, 2009 20:49:

Why can't I add non-Rebtel-country phones to my acct?

I have a Trinidad & Tobago (+1868) local SIM. While Trinidad is not a Rebtel country the mobile operator has very good rates for calling the US (and Canada), about the same as calling a local Trinidad landline, though the rates for calling other countries are awful. I hence would have liked to add the phone to my account so that I could make overseas calls via US Rebtel numbers.

This, of course, isn't possible. Rebtel complains that since Trinidad isn't a Rebtel country I can't add the number. In this case, however, that makes no practical sense to me; since US numbers are as cheap to call from the phone as Trinidad landline numbers, having local numbers to call through wouldn't improve anything.

Is there no way to force a number to be treated like a US number for the purposes of Rebtel registration? Even if I can somehow prove that I know what I'm doing when I do that? It seems to me that adding a phone number from a non-Rebtel country, which is prohibited, is almost always better than using Rebtel while roaming in the same country with a phone from your home country, which Rebtel doesn't (can't) prevent.