Cellular Ring Tones – What Are Ringbacks?

Downloading cellular ring tones is so popular today that ring tones for cell phones have proven to be a huge revenue stream for companies that develop cellular applications. Cellular ring tones generated more than $2.3 billion dollars in worldwide sales, in 2003. Customized ring tones could significantly increase those sales.

If you’ve ever called someone and then forgotten who you were calling, ringbacks may be for you. A ringback is the tone you hear when you call someone’s phone and are waiting for them to answer. There is a standard ring tone that everyone hears, but now that simple ringback tone can be replaced with customized content that changes depending on you’re calling.

When you subscribe to a service through your cellular carrier they can now program the service to play a certain ringback based on the phone number of the incoming call. When the ringback service subscriber receives a call, the server activates the selected audio clip instead of a standard ring. Almost anything available for regular ring tones can be used for ringbacks as well and ringbacks can be customized to groups of callers as well as individuals.

This new type of cellular ring tone service is already being used by 8 million of South Korea’s SK Telecom subscribers. The company now generates $9 million per month from its ringback service—more than it generates from traditional ring tones.

Ringback tones are stored on the carrier's server, unlike cellular ring tones, which are downloaded to the handset. Ringback tones can be used with any type of mobile phone.

Also see; cellular phone accessories.

Author Notes:

Jack Adams contributes and publishes news editorial to http://www.cell-phones-n-plans.com. An wireless resource featuring cell phone manufacturers, reviews and comparisons of various cellular providers and their phones.