If you have friends, family, and business associates overseas that you talk to, you know it’s not cheap.  Most phone plans have hefty charges for international calling, so staying in touch can leave you with a fat bill at the end of the month.  You can try using phone cards, but the savings are not always impressive, and it can be a hassle to deal with all those PIN numbers.

While there are ways to communicate cheaply through services such as Skype, free calling generally requires both parties to be at their PC when talking, or the use of inconvenient Wi-fi access during the call.

Now however, there is a new company that has developed some very clever programs that allow you to easily call anyone at hugely reduced rates. And, if you’re calling to one of 50 different countries, you can make the call for free. The service is called Rebtel, and they’ve been building their international presence since 2006.  Today, they have over 10 million users—so, they must be doing something right!

How does it work?  Simply sign up on their website and then enter the names and numbers of the people you frequently call overseas.  The system will immediately create and send you a unique local number for each of your contacts.  

Then, rather than dialing the international number to reach your party, you just dial the local number Rebtel provides you with.  Rebtels’s servers connect the call through the Internet at a tiny fraction of the cost you’d pay through a typical service plan.  

Just how low are the rates?  To see how cheap it is to call your friends or family overseas - just select their location on the calling guide to the right. You'll be amazed by these rates.

Now, the even better part: completely free calls.  To make a free call, the only requirements are for both parties to have an unlimited calling plan with their local landline company (most people do), and they must live in one of the 50 countries in Rebtel’s free network (again, most do).

The next step is to call them through the new local number Rebtel provides. When they receive the call, they can call you back on the incoming number that shows up their phone with your call.  This will be a local number, so it’s no cost for them to call you, and the conversation will be free.  It’s a remarkably simple and easy process.

Rebtel also has free apps for iPhone, Android, and Blackberry smart phones.  These allow you to automatically create and store numbers on your cell phone for your international contacts, so you can use your contacts and speed-dial to make both free and low-cost calls from these devices.

The quality of Rebtel calls is excellent and the company takes customer satisfaction very seriously.  They have made a considerable investment in taking care of their customers.  Their customer satisfaction is extremely high, with 96.7 percent of users saying they would recommend Rebtel to a friend.

Even better, right now, HowLifeWorks readers can get an additional 50% discount on their first $10 in calls. Just enter voucher code: rebtel50% when you sign up.

To see just how easy it is to make low-cost and free international calls on Rebtel, click here.