Personalized Ring-back Tones

In recent years "personalized" Ringback tones have become globally popular. With this feature, callers will hear an audio selection applied to the telephone line that has been previously determined by the called party. Audio selections can include music, messages, greetings and special effects like mixing. Equipment is installed in the telephone network to enable replacement of the standard ring-back tone with a personalized audio selection. This ensures that the handset equipment is not burdened with media storage and playback .The application of the personalized audio selections is accomplished with a subscriber account that can be modified through WWW, WAP, SMS, USSD or Voice User Interfaces, as well as by customer care personnel.

The first personalized ring-back tone service called Color Ring Back Tone (CRBT) was invented by a South Korean company, Witcom in May 2001 and started service with SK Telecom in South Korea from April 2002. Witcom also developed CRBT IP server for mass service as well. In March 2004, Vodafone D2 was the first European operator to launch the Ringback Tone service. Vodafone used the European Computer Telecoms (ECT) solution.

Today various companies supply personalized ring-back equipment for mobile phone and landline telephone companies. Most mobile operators offer RBT services to their customers. The first company to launch a commercial system in the United States was Preferred Voice, Inc. Most global communication companies now have ringback equipment provided by several major network vendors including RealNetworks,FFCL, Huawei,Alcatel-Lucent, Comverse Technology, Ericsson, LogicaCMG, Nortel,Eluon, Wind Mobile OnMobile and SixDee.

The majority of mobile operators provide RBT services to their customers. Some operators use a multi-country system, with one RBT system providing content and subscriber services to each country market. The most notable is Vodafone which has 18 local markets. The rollout was done with LogicaCMG doing most of the system integration, using the MyCaller system from NMS Communications(mobile applications division is now called Livewire mobile) as an RBT solution, although some Vodafone operators are using different platforms, such as Comverse's Fun Dial platform used by Vodafone Italy.

The use of such nonstandard telephony signals can cause problems with automatic dialing equipment such as faxes and modems, however lines intended to receive such data telephone calls normally have the proper ring-back tone. In addition, a caller may define specific users to whom the personalized content will be played. Other callers will hear the "traditional" Ringback tone.

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