Ringback Tones
The recent buzz in the mobile, wireless and music industries has been of these new fangled "ringback tones".
So what are ring back tones?
At their simplest level they are short clips of real music/songs that are played when a caller rings your mobile phone. Essentially a ring back tone
replaces the standard "brring brrring" sound we have all grown accustomed to since the days of Alexander Graham Bell.
OK, so now we know what a ringback tone is. So What ? Well the wireless industry is very hopeful that all of us
as mobile consumers will choose this new way of personalising our communications services. So if you are a U2 fan, you
can have the dulcit tones of Bono played to your callers as they wait patiently for you to pick up the phone !
Of course mobile operators are hoping to make a killing as we warm to these new ringbacks. It all started in Korea, where
SK Telecom, introduced its "ColoRing" service about two years ago. A third of SK Telecoms 18 million customers switched on
the ringback service for their calls, and this generated monthly revenues of over $8 million dollars according to Ovum Consulting.
Other operators like Verizon, T-Mobile, Vodafone, Telefonica and Tele2 have already launched limited services, but are
clearly hoping to replicate SK Telecoms success and revenues.
Time will tell if RingBacks are the new Ring Tones ... we will watch this space with interest.
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