The English Speaking Swedish Community - For all expats in Sweden

Not too long ago I discovered Rebtel - a cheap telephone service where you can make international phone calls over the Internet from a cell phone, for rates that rates that you would never have expected; and it is based in Stockholm!

I have family in South Africa, England and the US and so I have always had a need for a cheaper alternative to calling home. I remember when I started university back in 1997, I had to send snail mail letters to all my friends back in South Africa, and rack up a huge phone bill with my friends in Europe. Those times soon changed and we started sending mail, and today we have progressed to making Internet phone calls from cell phones. Amazing.

Then came Skype, and although it has seemed to work if you are a home body, it was limited that it could not really be taken anywhere. For those of us who live away from home, and only treat our shoebox downtown Stockholm apartments as a dormitory, I found a service called Rebtel which makes it possible to call for cheap from a cell phone and bypass the local service provider like 3 or Telia. And I mean seriously cheap!

To give an idea of the costs:

0.135 SEK/minute to call from Sweden to any number in the USA

0.180 SEK/minute from Sweden to Australia

0.171 SEK/minute from Sweden to the UK

0.52 SEK/minute from Sweden to South Africa

It works by allowing you to create special "contact" number to put into you cellphone address book. When you all this number, connects you into the Rebtel service and calls the contact you have chosen. It is really simple and all you have to do is sign up for an account.

I have had great success with this service, and please share your thoughts about it. Are there any other services like it? Are there other good services specially targeting expats?

by Jeff (jeff@xpats.nu) 2009-03-02

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