Free Wi-Fi calling is a great way for those who need to make calls from their mobile phone or PC on a regular basis. This can save people significant amounts of money every year, and is a huge advantage over a traditional phone service, expensive phone contracts (including 3G access) and even VoIP clients like Skype or Google Voice.

Free WiFi Calls Have Been Hard to Make for Years

Making free WiFi calls on mobile phones or PCs has often involved having to engage in complicated workarounds with PBX systems, SIP accounts, hard to configure apps and forwarding setups. Often a ‘free WiFi calling solution” is offered, but the reality turns out to be either costly due to hidden charges or results in bad service with horrible connections, dropped calls and “out of service” areas.

Some mobile phone carriers have attempted to offer free calling over WiFi, but such plans rarely last long as they resort to their core products and services instead – which is the real cash cow for them.

iPhone Users and Free WiFi Calling

The iStore isn’t without its critics and some cheap calling apps have been known to have been blocked on iPhones. Apps can be bought from the iPhone store that promise ‘free WiFi calls’, but many either have a catch that minutes are still deducted from the carrier’s phone plan or that they require lengthy and complicated configurations to work.  It can also be such that each call requires a series of steps to connect, something that is far from convenient.

So what are the options?

Many services exist to give users the option of making free calls via Wi-fi which is great for the market.  There are however certain limitations, with regards to contacting people outside of that particular service’s app.  For example, a user of Skype has to pay to contact to someone who doesn’t have Skype. Unfortunately the same applies across the market and there are no ubiquitous, far-reaching cross-app services.

There is often a greater need to contact friends, relatives and business associates across multi platforms, connecting from the internet to mobile phones and land lines. This is where other services like Rebtel are really useful.

Rebtel is becoming a big player in the market on the basis of its high quality and low cost of service.  Phone calls can be made to any other phone, including landlines and the app can be used to make international calls for up to 98% less cost than with traditional carriers. It’s easy to set up; you can try the service free of charge and use Wi-Fi networks to avoid expensive roaming charges.

So whilst totally free Wi-Fi services do have their limitations. And when they don’t quite fit your needs, cheap providers like Rebtel bridge the gap to make sure you are kept fully in the loop with your friends and family abroad.