International calling is a complete mess. It’s difficult, expensive, and often unsatisfactory.

Tech savvy folks try to use apps like Skype, Viber, Tango, and WhatsApp to call their loved ones, but more often than not, the connection is bad and calls get dropped. If you happen to have older relatives who don’t own smartphones, you’re also out of luck. Many apps offer international calls to landlines, but the prices are often absurdly high. And you can always try old-school calling cards, too — which offer a more reliable signal and the ability to call both smartphones and landlines — but they will cost you a pretty penny.

Enter Rebtel, a Swedish company that has offered international calling packages for a decade now. The company’s founders, CEO Magnus Larsson and CMO Fredrik Wrahme, both came from the telecom industry and recognized the need for stable, fairly-priced international calling.

Their new service, named ‘Rebel Calling,’ hopes to finally deliver on that promise. It offers free unlimited international phone calls for a year, and $1 a month after that. Unlike Viber, Skype, Tango, and other competitors’ apps, it doesn’t route calls over Wi-Fi either, which means you should get a more stable connection, sometimes. As Larsson puts it, you get “the stability of the traditional GSM telco connection, but from a mostly free service.” And since the calls are unlimited, you don’t have to worry about running out of minutes mid phone call.

“We come from an industry that’s been overpricing the customer for such a long time,” Larsson told Digital Trends. “The margins are incredible, and when you talk about international calling, it’s even worse.”

Rebtel’s Head of Product Jonathan Göransson told us that the telecom industry views international calls as a “cash cow,” raking in up to 80 percent in margins. “They are charging too much,” he explained, and Rebtel’s goal is to offer customers a fair price. Even at $1-a-month, it’s able to turn a profit because its method of connecting calls is actually cheaper than traditional methods. Larsson is quick to point out that Rebtel doesn’t just want to offer a cheaper service, but a better one.

“There are so many apps that don’t work — they always drop the call — and calling cards are a scam, actually. They charge you all these hidden fees. So, we asked ourselves, ‘How can we do international calling in a much better way?'”

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“Spotify revolutionized the music industry, Skype revolutionized peer to peer video calling, so we want to be the next big thing,” Wrahme added. “We want to crack international calling the way it should be cracked. Viber and Skype haven’t really nailed it. We want to be the Skype and Viber that actually works.”

Here’s how it works

Rebel Calling connects both users by making local calls on your standard carrier’s network. Since Rebtel sets it up as a local phone call, you’ll be charged the same rate you’d pay for a normal phone call to someone local. Rebtel routes the call as close to you as possible, either in your state, or sometimes a nearby city. It also points out that in the United States, nearly 100 percent of smartphone owners have unlimited talk minutes, and even if you don’t, an international Rebel call will only cost about $0.04 per minute, which is 80 to 90 percent cheaper than what most carriers charge for international calls. Wi-Fi VoIP calling is also available, if you want to use it.

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