I think Techcrunch (US) is missing something in their RebTel post, whilst I think Techcrunch (UK) is somewhat blinded by FON in their post. Not that it's any skin off their back these days given the size of the cigar that Mike is smoking in Business2. But moving on...
On RebTel: Arrington grumbles that the set-up of a call is too complex and that consumers will never get it. If I understand the service correctly, RebTel's silver lining is: you only need to do this once; once you have established your local buddy number, you never need to do the "drop the leg / call me back routine". So in other words if you live in East Palo Alto (as a cheap startupist should) and Mom is back in the USSR, you would probably find it worthwhile to go through the first RebTel call establishment, after which she could save your # as "Son - Local" and you can do the same for her. That's it, next time call your stored number and there is nothing else to do. No VOIP involved locally by the way, this is not a VOIP company per se (apart from the fact that it leverages IP transit).
RebTel should be a great business model since they probably only use a limited number of local numbers and use CLI to know which phone they need to route to. And there is a ton of money still in the termination business! Time for my mea culpa: I met the founder at Innovate in Zaragoza courtesy of Chris Shipley and did not chase the guy... ouch.
By contrast I am not "getting" FON much. Some basic thoughts:
- how likely is it that your home ever become a serious hotspot ? Mine is 50 meters away from my local pub, 200 meters away from Starbucks. Maybe I should put a bench outside my house with FON branding. Maybe they have a Wifi-enabled bench in the works, come to think of it...
- why the $5 router ? that's a lot of capex subsidy, if they really are going to give away 1M of these. An IP set-top box from Amino costs $50, and that's got so much higher associated ARPU's... I think the answer lies in both the level of ambition of the founder and the fact that the firmware is tough to download and provision. A bit too ambitious for my liking, for once...
What's for sure is that Europe really is getting disruptive, as per VTho ! I just hope we can be succesfully disruptive as well ;-)
Rebtel is one of those good tips & tricks that goes around a "problem". In the case in point, Rebtel goes around the mobile operators attempts to lock the market but it's not a disruptive, innovative communication solution. It's a nice tool for people really motivated and resourceful, but it can't go mainstream.
FON is a bit different. It's much more a Trojan horse, an accelerator to global permanent internet access, serving humanism and idealism of people like Martin Varsavsky as well as strategical moves for companies like Google and Skype.
Posted by: Louis van Proosdij Duport | September 28, 2006 at 10:35 AM
REBTEL DIALS UP $20 MILLION IN SERIES A FUNDING. Check it out:
http://techaddress.wordpress.com/2006/09/25/rebtel-dials-up-20-million-in-series-a-funding/
Posted by: TechAddress | September 25, 2006 at 11:31 PM
Fred
I am skeptical on Fon but also on Rebtel, i think it implies at least today to many manipulations to ever become mainstream wich is the point. I tried the service once : It is ok. But i would have issues to use it on a permanent basis.
Posted by: ouriel | September 25, 2006 at 07:09 AM