Ringtones

The first ringtones were downloaded back in 1997 and have been an international success story ever since. Nokia was the first to introduce downloadable ringers into their phones with a technology called Smart Messaging.

In fact, nobody believed that there was any demand for these services. But when the first service was put on air, in days the servers were sending ringers in the thousands.

Those early days sparked the whole cell phone entertainment industry, with cell phone manufacturers starting to produce phones capable of picture messages, downloadable games and so on.

How Can YOU Get Ringtones?

If you want to have new ringers in your phone, you have to check two things.

First, that the cell phone is capable of new ringing tune downloads. And secondly, that the cell phone service allows downloads to their network.

Generally speaking, you should be able to download one brand’s ringers to another brand phone (say, Motorola ringtones to a Nokia phone) only if you're sending ringers based on same standards, say MP3.

However, some MP3s and other ringtone formats are protected by DRM (Digital Rights Management) features, which blocks you from forwarding them, for example.

Types of Ringtones Available

The best services have thousands of ringers to choose from.

For many of the best services, such as 3gupload.com, you can choose from all types of ringers, including monotonic, polyphonic, and real music ringers.

However, you should always check beforehand the types of ringing tones your cell phone supports.

Monotonic ringtones are simple beebs just like the original call alarms in cell phones, but when composed accordingly, will resemble your favorite tune.

Polyphonic ringtones, unlike monotonic ones, support multiple instruments simultaneously. The typical range is from 16 to 32 instruments playing at the same time, but the best Yamaha mobile ringtone chips allow up to 40 instruments to play at the same time.

Because of multi-instrument sounds, polyphonic ringers sound more like the original songs.

Finally, the third generation of ringing tones provide MP3 quality audio, with an additional ability to record your own voice (or song), or download celebrity voices as ringtones.

The audio formats these real music ringers are based on include MP3/WAV/AAC.

Of these AAC is the next evolution from MP3 ringtones, and will gain support as major manufacturers including Nokia bring out more handsets with AAC support.

How Much Should You Pay for a Ringtone?

Because ringers resemble original songs they’ve been taken from, sellers of ringers have to pay royalty fees to the copyright owners. In addition, it costs the seller money to send the ringtone and provide the service.

That’s why ringers are not generally speaking not free.

However, you may be able to get a free ringtone from commercial services as a promotional offer. For example, some artists release previews of their upcoming singles as free ringers.

On the other hand, some artists have banned the use of their work from being used as monotonic or polyphonic ringers. That’s why you won’t find (legal) monotonic ABBA ringing tunes.

Pricing varies from one carrier to the next. Generally speaking, in the U.S., most ringers cost $1+ per tone.

If you live in Asia, the average price of a ringtone is much lower, at around $0.20. While in Europe, expect to pay about half as much as in the U.S.