Rebtel’s Goes Easy, Thinks White Label
Source: gigaom.com
Rebtel, a London-based VoIP start-up seems to be taking a whitelabel approach to boost usage of its services. The company will announce a brand license deal with easyGroup, a company started by discount carrier easyJet founder and serial entrepreneur Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou. As part of this deal, easyGroup will sell cheap international calls under the brandname, easyMobile.
easyGroup is well-kown in Europe for offering discount services-from airtravel to internet access to rentals, and cheap international calling fits in with easyGroup’s overall business mantra. easyMobile is going to target 5.5 million Britons who live overseas and a million non-british EU citizens. VoIP has become popular in Europe, mostly because carriers both fixed and wireless have high tariffs for long distance calls.
Over past few years there has been a huge influx of East Europeans in the UK workforce. Their international calling patterns offer an opportunity for a discounter, especially if it works with a mobile phone. Rebtel’s mobile VoIP service will work with any mobile phone. The two companies didn’t disclose the terms of the agreement. From what I understand, there will be some revenue exchanged. Rebtel has also done a similar deal with Polish portal, Onet.pl, making this their second white-label deal. I guess like Jajah, Rebtel is coming to grips with the reality that building a brand isn’t easy.
Rebtel is one of the companies that I ignored for a while, mostly because at the time of their launch in May 2006, I found the user experience challenging. The company that raised over $20 million for Benchmark Capital & Index Ventures, has since be working to make the service easier to use.
Our friend, Luca Filigheddu was singing their praises recently. That said, this is an increasingly crowded market - several players have Mobile VoIP solutions that essentially compete with Rebtel, not to mention Pat Phelan’s roaming discounter, MAXroam, a service I use and recommend.
All these new development… maybe it is time to catch up with co-founder, Hjalmar Winbladh.
