A ringtone or ring tone is the sound made by a cell phone to indicate an incoming call. The term is a misnomer, as it is often used to refer to any ring sound, almost all of which are not tones. A misnomer is a term which suggests an interpretation that is known to be untrue A pure tone is a tone with a sinusoidal waveshape A Sine wave is characterized by its frequency — the number of cycles per second or its Wavelength The term is most often used to refer to the customizable sounds used on mobile phones.

A phone “rings” when its network indicates an incoming call and the phone thus alerts the user. For landline telephones, the call signal can be an electric current generated by the switch to which the telephone is connected. A landline, main line or fixed-line is a Telephone line which travels through a solid medium either metal Wire or Optical fibre For mobile phones, the network sends the phone a message indicating an incoming call.

A telephone “ring” is the sound generated when there is an incoming telephone call. A telephone call is a connection over a Telephone network between the Calling party and the Called party. The term originated from the fact that early telephones had a ringing mechanism consisting of a bell and an electromagnetically-driven hammer, producing a ringing sound. An electromagnet is a type of Magnet in which the Magnetic field is produced by the flow of an electric current. The aforementioned electrical signal powered the electromagnet which would rapidly move and release the hammer, striking the bell. This "magneto" bell system is still in widespread use. The ringing signal sent to a customer's telephone is AC at 90 volts and 20 hertz in North America. An alternating current ( AC) is an Electric current whose direction reverses cyclically as opposed to Direct current, whose direction remains constant The volt (symbol V) is the SI derived unit of electric Potential difference or Electromotive force. The hertz (symbol Hz) is a measure of Frequency, informally defined as the number of events occurring per Second. While the sound produced is still called a “ring”, more-recently manufactured telephones electronically produce a warbling, chirping, or other sound. A chirp is a signal in which the Frequency increases ('up-chirp' or decreases ('down-chirp' with time Variation of the ring signal can be used to indicate characteristics of incoming calls (for example, rings with a shorter interval between them might be used to signal a call from a given number).

Contents 1 History of ring tones 2 Ringing signal 3 Features 4 Types of ring tones 5 Ring tone formats 6 Ring tone maker 7 Criticism 8 See also 9 References 10 External links

History of ring tones

The first commercial mobile ring tones were created and delivered in Finland in 1998 when a Finnish mobile operator Radiolinja (today Elisa) started their downloadable mobile ring tone service called Harmonium. Radiolinja was a Finnish GSM operator founded on September 19 1988. "HPY" redirects here For the airport see Baytown Airport. Invented by Vesa-Matti Pananen. ^[1], the Harmonium contained both tools for individuals to create monophonic ring tones and a mechanism to deliver them over-the-air (OTA) via SMS to a mobile handset. Short Message Service ( SMS) is a Communications protocol allowing the interchange of short text messages between mobile telephone devices. The service concept spread quickly in Europe and Asia and developed into a multi-billion dollar industry. ^[2] A ring tone service was one of the very first successful m-commerce services, with social media features like composing, sharing, and rating ring tones. Mobile Commerce (also known as M-Commerce, mCommerce or U-Commerce, owing to the ubiquitous nature of its services is the ability to conduct Social media are primarily Internet-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings The Harmonium also quickly created a market for high-quality professional ring tones and commercial ring tone libraries.

The rise of video games has also contributed to the popularity of ring tones. A video game is a Game that involves interaction with a User interface to generate visual feedback on a video device. ^[3] On August 5, 2006, the BBC described "free ring tones" as a dangerous search term, because of the risk of malware and other malicious websites. Events 642 - Battle of Maserfield - Penda of Mercia defeats and kills Oswald of Bernicia. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Malware, a Portmanteau word from the words '''mal'''icious and soft'''ware''', is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without ^[4]

By 2005, ring tones generated more than $2 billion in annual worldwide revenues. ^[5] Real tones, which are often excerpts from pop songs, have become popular as ring tones.

Sales and marketing of ring tones is a prime example of vertical telecommunication convergence. Telecommunications convergence is a concept dating back to AT&T in 1928 but has evolved in the 21st century to dominate the Market positioning of telecoms operators

Ringing signal

A ringing signal is an electric telephony signal that causes a telephone to alert the user to an incoming call. In Telecommunication, telephony (təˈlɛfəni or teh-LEH-fuh-nee encompasses the general use of equipment to provide voice communication over distances specifically On a POTS telephone system, this is created by sending an alternating current signal of about 100 volts into the line. An alternating current ( AC) is an Electric current whose direction reverses cyclically as opposed to Direct current, whose direction remains constant The volt (symbol V) is the SI derived unit of electric Potential difference or Electromotive force. Today this signal may be transmitted digitally for much of the journey, provided as an alternating current only because a majority of landlines are not digital end-to-end. A landline, main line or fixed-line is a Telephone line which travels through a solid medium either metal Wire or Optical fibre In old phones, this voltage was used to trigger a high-impedance electromagnet to ring a bell on the phone. Electrical impedance, or simply impedance, describes a measure of opposition to a sinusoidal Alternating current (AC

Fixed phones of the late 20th century and later detect this AC voltage and trigger a warbling tone electronically. A landline, main line or fixed-line is a Telephone line which travels through a solid medium either metal Wire or Optical fibre An alternating current ( AC) is an Electric current whose direction reverses cyclically as opposed to Direct current, whose direction remains constant Mobile phones are fully digital, hence are signalled to ring as part of the protocol they use to communicate with the cell base stations.

In fixed POTS phones, ringing is said to be "tripped" when the impedance of the line reduces to about 600 ohms when the telephone handset is lifted off the switch-hook. The ohm (symbol Ω) is the SI unit of Electrical impedance or in the Direct current case Electrical resistance, This signals that the telephone call has been answered, and the telephone exchange immediately removes the ringing signal from the line and connects the call. This is the source of the name of the problem called "ring-trip" or "pre-trip", which occurs when the ringing signal on the line encounters excessively low resistance between the conductors, which trips the ring before the subscriber's actual telephone has a chance to ring (for more than a very short time); this is common with wet weather and improperly installed lines.

Early research showed that people would wait until the phone stopped ringing before picking it up. Breaks were introduced into the signal to avoid this problem, resulting in the common ring-pause-ring cadence pattern used today. In early party line systems this pattern was a Morse code letter indicating who should pick up the phone, but today, with individual lines, the only surviving patterns are a single ring and double-ring, originally Morse code letters T and M respectively. In 20th century Telephone systems a party line (also multiparty line or Shared Service Line) is an arrangement in which two or more customers are Morse code is a Character encoding for transmitting telegraphic information using standardized sequences of short and long elements to represent the letters numerals

The ringing pattern is known as ring cadence. This only applies to POTS fixed phones, where the high voltage ring signal is switched on and off to create the ringing pattern. In North America, the standard ring cadence is "2-4", or two seconds of ringing followed by four seconds of silence. In Australia and the UK, the standard ring cadence is 400 ms on, 200 ms off, 400 ms on, 2000 ms off. These patterns may vary from region to region, and other patterns are used in different countries around the world.

A service akin to party line ringing is making a comeback in some small office and home office situations allowing facsimile machines and telephones to share the same line but have different telephone numbers; this CLASS feature is usually called distinctive ringing generically, though carriers assign it trademarked names such as "Smart Ring", "Duet", "Multiple Number" and "Ringmaster. Fax (short for facsimile, from Latin fac simile, "make similar" i Distinctive Ring, marketed under a variety of names is a telephone company offering that establishes additional telephone numbers on the same line as an existing number each number ringing A trademark or trade mark, represented by the symbols ™ and ®, or mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual " This feature is also used for a second phone number assigned to the same physical line for roommates or teenagers, in which case it is sometimes marketed under the name teen line. Caller ID signals are sent during the silent interval between the first and second bursts of the ringing signals. For the protein involved in the synthesis of Major histocompatibility complex II see CLIP (protein.

The interrupted ring signal was designed to attract attention and studies showed that an intermittent two tone ring was the easiest to hear. This had nothing to do with the coded ringing that was used on party line.

Features

Older telephones simply used a pair of bells for the ringer. An electric bell is a mechanical bell that functions by means of an Electromagnet. Modern ring tones have become extremely diverse, leading to phone personalization and customization.

Newer mobile phones allow users to associate different ring tones with individual family members and friends. Taking advantage of these features, a new ring tone maker trend has emerged. For example, websites like Mobilephoria, Phone Sherpa, and Dopetone let users make ring tones from the music they already own (MP3, CD etc. MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a Digital audio encoding format using a form of Lossy data compression A Compact Disc (also known as a CD) is an Optical disc used to store digital data, originally developed for storing digital audio ) and upload directly to their mobile phone with no limit on the number of songs uploaded. In addition to the cost benefits, a key feature is the music editor that lets the user easily pick the part of the song they wish to set as a ring tone. Such services automatically detect the phone settings to ensure the best file type and format. There are, however, providers who have already edited and trimmed the song for you.

Some providers allow users to create their own music tones, either with a "melody composer" or a sample/loop arranger (such as the MusicDJ in many Sony Ericsson phones). However, these use native formats only available to one particular phone model or brand. Other formats, such as MIDI or MP3, are often supported; they must be downloaded to the phone before they can be used as a normal ring tone. Commercial ring tones take advantage of this functionality, which has led to the success of the mobile music industry. Southern rapper Chamillionaire was the first to have a ring tone go 3x platinum for the hit single "Ridin. " He now has his own category on certain phones.

The latest innovation is the sing tone, a type of karaoke ring tone where a user’s voice recording is adjusted to be both in time and in tune then mixed with a backing track to make a user-created ring tone.

An alternative to a ring tone for mobile phones is a vibrating alert. A vibrating alert is on communications devices to notify the user of an incoming connection It may be useful:

• In noisy environments
• In places where ring tone noise would be disturbing
• For those with a hearing loss

Types of ring tones

Monophonic

A monophonic ring tone is simply a series of notes, one musical note at a time.

Polyphonic

A polyphonic ring tone can consist of several notes at a time. Polyphony is the property of an Electronic musical instrument which describes how many notes it can sound at one time The first polyphonic ring tones used sequenced recording methods such as MIDI. A music sequencer (also MIDI sequencer or just sequencer) is software or hardware designed to create and manage computer-generated music MIDI ( Musical Instrument Digital Interface, ˈmɪdi is an industry-standard protocol that enables Electronic musical instruments Computers Such recordings specify what synthetic instrument should play a note at a given time, and the actual instrument sound is dependent upon the playback device.

Truetone

A truetone (also known as "realtone", "mastertone", "superphonic ringtone" or "audio recording") is simply an audio recording, typically in a common format such as "MP3", AAC, or WMA, and represents the latest evolution of the ring tone. A truetone is a Ringtone which has has been encoded with a sampled audio format such MP3, AAC, or WMA. MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a Digital audio encoding format using a form of Lossy data compression Advanced Audio Coding ( AAC) is a standardized lossy compression and encoding scheme for Digital audio. Truetones, which are often excerpts from songs, have become popular as ring tones.

Ring tone formats

• AAC: Some phones like the Sony Ericsson W810i support ring tones in ". Advanced Audio Coding ( AAC) is a standardized lossy compression and encoding scheme for Digital audio. The W810 (available as the W810i and W810c) is a Camera phone produced by Sony Ericsson and the successor of the W800 m4a" AAC format. The iPhone supports ring tones in ". The iPhone is an internet-connected Multimedia Smartphone designed and marketed by Apple Inc m4r" AAC format.
• eMelody: Older Ericsson format. iMelody is a non-polyphonic Ringtone exchange object format used for Mobile phones defined by Ericsson and Sony Ericsson together with other
• iMelody: Most new phones that don't do Nokia's Smart Messaging are using this format. iMelody is a non-polyphonic Ringtone exchange object format used for Mobile phones defined by Ericsson and Sony Ericsson together with other
• KWS: Kyocera's ringer format.
• MID / MIDI: Popular sound format. MIDI ( Musical Instrument Digital Interface, ˈmɪdi is an industry-standard protocol that enables Electronic musical instruments Computers
• Morse code: Text files with a . MORSE extension get converted into morse code songs.
• MOT: An older ringer format for Motorola phones.
• MP3: Some phones support ring tones that are mp3 format. MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a Digital audio encoding format using a form of Lossy data compression
• Nokia / SCKL / OTT: Nokia Smart Messaging format. Nokia Corporation (pronunciation /'nɔkiɑ/),,) is a Finnish multinational Communications Corporation, headquartered Nokia phones can receive ring tones as a text message. Ring tone tools can create these text messages. This allows anyone with a compatible phone to load their own ring tones in without a data cable. There are other phones besides Nokia that use this.
• PDB: Palm database. This is the format used to load ring tones on PDA phones such as the Kyocera 6035 and the Handspring Treo.
• PMD: Format co-created by Qualcomm and Japanese company Faith which can include MIDI, sampled audio, static graphics, animation, text, vibration and LED events
• QCP: File format generated by Qualcomm PureVoice software. The QCP file format is used by many cellular telephone manufacturers for providing voice Ring tones. QCELP (Qualcomm Code Excited Linear Prediction also known as Qualcomm PureVoice, is a Speech codec developed in 1994 to increase the speech quality of
• RTTTL: A popular text format for ring tones. RTTTL stands for Ring Tone Text Transfer Language. It was developed by Nokia to be used to transfer Cellphone Ringtones The RTTTL format
• RTX: Similar to RTTTL with some advanced features. Also the octaves are different on RTX.
• Samsung1 & Samsung2: Samsung keypress format.
• Siemens Keypress: Can create and read in a Siemens text file format.
• Siemens SEO: Siemens SEO binary format.
• SMAF: Yamaha music format that combines MIDI with instrument sound data (aka Module files). This is a music data format specified by Yamaha for portable electronic devices such as Cell phones and PDAs. Module files ( MODs have several different File formats One important format is that of the Fortran Module, which is a compiled "intermediate" Filenames have the extension "MMF".

Ring tone maker

A ring tone maker allows a user to take a song from their music collection, pick the part that they like and send the file to their mobile phone. Files can be sent to the mobile phone by direct connection (e. g. , USB cable), Bluetooth, text messaging, or e-mail, however, most ring tone makers have adopted a "one size fits all" strategy of downloading through the Internet; while appealing to the lowest common denominator, this method usually results in charges to the user for Internet time used on their mobile phones.

The Internet-based transition was further marked in 2005 with the on-air, G4TechTV review of "SmashTheTones" (now "Mobile17"), the first third-party solution to allow ring tone creation on a webpage without requiring downloadable software or a digital audio editor. G4techTV ( May 28, 2004 &ndash February 15, 2005) was a cable and satellite channel resulting from a Mobile17 is a " Ringtone maker " website that enables users to create Mobile content (such as Ringtones and Graphics) at no-charge A web page or webpage is a resource of information that is suitable for the World Wide Web and can be accessed through a Web browser. A digital audio editor is a computer application for Audio editing, i With the Internet now playing the process' largest role, other websites began to offer such tools and ring tone making has not only become simplified but more accessible to the average user.

Criticism

In April 2005, the law firm of Callahan, McCune and Willis filed a class action lawsuit against Jamster! on behalf of a San Diego father and his ten-year-old daughter. Jamba! is a Mobile phone content provider based in Berlin, Germany. ^[6] The lawsuit alleges that Jamster! scammed cellular telephone customers through the use of fraudulent and deceptive advertisements. The ads in question offered one free ring tone to cell phone customers who responded to the ad via text message, but failed to inform users that they would be subscribed to a monthly service. ^[7] The lawsuit is pending as of March 2007.

On July 20, 2005, the Utility Consumers' Action Network (UCAN), a non-profit California consumer advocacy organization, filed a complaint with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) against Cingular Wireless for the unauthorized billing of non-communications related charges, such as ring tones. Events 1304 - Wars of Scottish Independence: Fall of Stirling Castle - King Edward I of England takes the last rebel stronghold Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The California Public Utilities Commission ( CPUC; also often commonly referred to as simply the PUC) is a state Public Utilities Commission which regulates AT&T Mobility LLC (usually branded AT&T, and formerly named Cingular Wireless LLC) is the wholly owned wireless subsidiary of AT&T Inc ^[8] UCAN claimed that Cingular billed its customers for Jamster! and other similar ring tone services without providing customers with the notice, opt-in, and proof of authorization requirements necessary for such charges. AT&T Mobility LLC (usually branded AT&T, and formerly named Cingular Wireless LLC) is the wholly owned wireless subsidiary of AT&T Inc Jamba! is a Mobile phone content provider based in Berlin, Germany. ^[9] UCAN further charged Cingular with violating numerous CPUC requirements by consistently telling customers with questions about non-communications service charges on their wireless phone bill that Cingular has no responsibility and cannot assist customers with their inquiries. ^[10] UCAN and Cingular reached a settlement on October 19, 2006, which resulted in stronger notification and authorization requirements for Cingular regarding non-communications charges and also required Cingular to institute a ready means to address billing issues and cancel wireless content services, such as ring tones. Events 202 BCE - The Battle of Zama results in the defeat of Carthage and Hannibal. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ^[11]

See also

• Nokia tune
• Ringback tone
• SMAF
• Teen Buzz
• Dial tone

References

External links

• Wired.com:Creating your own ring tone
• How Stuff Works - Ringtones
• Ringtone FAQ - Consumer guide to ring tone billing and authorization, the complaint process, and ring tone scams
• New Media Rights - How to make your own cell phone ringtones for free

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