O2 blocks Rebtel
Rebtel is one of the pair of telephony products I use every day (the other being truphone)
Well news has reached me that O2 Germany have now blocked the German Rebtel access numbers. I presume that these numbers come from Voxbone or any number of voip DID providers which mean that O2 are blocking all access to voip redirect in Germany and this will affect everyone in the voice 2.0 business.
I have just had a call with Rebtel Founder Hjalmar Windbladh and as you can imagine he is fuming.
O2 are telling their German customers three very different stories
1. They cannot under new regulations connect to these numbers
2. They will not connect to numbers which affect the O2 Germany business.
3. The numbers are turned off.
O2 are really penalizing their customers with this plan, the customers are obviously not going to phone long distance on their existing O2 account so will revert to phone cards or other methods, Hjalmar told me that they had had 100’s of emails from customers who are trying to figure out how to get out of their O2 contracts and move to other German carriers so this is a pretty pointless move by O2.
Yet another own goal by the world’s favourite carrier.
In France Rebtel numbers are not considered part of fixed line packages on SFR-Vodafone on pre-paid, on contract lines it comes normal out your minutes packages.
OS2/Telefonica they still think monopoly. On Orange I have no problem.
So they do not like those numbers!
Had my daughter call me with her T-mobile (Germany) thru Rebtel as usual, and perfect, so its just O2.
Carlos
although rebtel has always marketed there service for international usage. it is exactly in countries like germany where all the major carriers give free unlimited landlines calls on very cheap monthly plans that i always felt the rebtel model really makes sense. the reason being that it is just as useful for turning calls between competing carriers into free calls; and without using up minute buckets(most german contract plans are unlimited to landlines)
looks like dead end now. i imagine the other operators are close behind with there own blockages.
Prices of communication have change a lot, in France I have for 29Euros internet+TV+ Phone that includes unlimited calling fixed lines Europe+ USA/Canada and many countries. In US just for cable/internet I pay US$52
I’ve been fighting with O2 for some while now, and would like to enclose my latest letter to O2:
So wie ich das verstehe, laut EU-
Wettbewerbsregeln, ist das was Ihr Engpässen nennt gleich gesetzeswidrig. Es ist auch schwer ein sinn zu sehen: Kunden zu blockieren – Kunden die man einfach an die Konkurrens verliert.
Ich sehe ein dass ich O2 als provider nicht mehr nutzen kann, was relativ viele andere schon realisieren und noch realisieren werden.
[English translation]:
The way I see it, what you call ‘bottlenecks’(O2 calls their blocking of numbers ‘prossible bottlenecks the customer might experience’) this is not in accordance with EU competition law and therefore illegal. It is also hard to see the point with blocking customers: customers simply handed over to competitors.
Ich realise that I no more can use O2 as a provider, something that relatively many have and will realise.