back...

Ringtones - A Short History

Martin Cooper made the first radio phone, or mobile telephone, in the 1970's, and he is the considered the father of the cellular phones. Early on in the 1980's, the mobile phone was directed at big managers from big enterprises that always needed to be in touch and whom could afford the devices. But no one anticipated the market would grow so quickly. Businesses used cell phones as a way to sell their products, and soon everyone had a cell phone. But in order for individuals to differentiate and improve their image, the novelty of the ringtone began.

The ringtone is the sound that indicates an incoming call on the mobile phone. At the beginning, enterprises developed and sold just monophonic tones. Through technology that was growing up so fast and was directed to ringtone users, many cell phone manufacturers developed polyphonic tones and the ability to download music on MP3, CD, etc.  Some companies even developed that the client already had, and the clients downloaded the music directly to their mobile phone. A more recent innovation is the ‘SINGTONE’ which is a tone that includes a voice recording from the user, and which is regulated in time and sound in a mix of a karaoke track, creating a new and personalized tone for the user into his mobile phone for incoming calls.

Everywhere we go, we are able to hear a distinctive and unique ring tone for an incoming call, a specific caller, MMS message, and SMS message. NEXTEL Enterprise is great example to learn about. Nextel got focus on the young ladies from United States who like going out with friends, surfing and snowboarding for many hours a day, and in order to be in touch with other people, or not to talk with someone in particular, they choose a variety of ring tones per each call incoming. These young ladies had more than 500 ring tones on their cell phones and because of it, they can chose an specific ring tone for their purpose, as an example they had a classic music, as a tone, called: ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’. They use this ring tone to identify the calls incoming from their friends and Fifty-cents as a modern ring tone to identify a specific or particular caller.

This is a little example of how a personalization of tones on a cell phone can be adjusted for the satisfaction of users. Because of the studies made by the enterprises, they gain benefits due to sells of products that are interesting for the market.