A ringback tone is an audible indication that is heard on the telephone line by the caller while the phone they are calling is being rung. It is normally a repeated tone, designed to assure the calling party that the called party's line is ringing, although the ring-back tone may be out of sync with the ringing signal.
The ringback tone (or "RBT") is in most cases generated in the distant switch and transmitted in-band. A message is also sent over the signaling system (usually SS7). In most public phone networks the tone is not generated in the handset or by the local switch, as customized tones or voice announcements may be generated by the distant switch in place of a ringing signal.
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In the UK, Republic of Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and many Commonwealth nations, it is a double ring. For most countries, it consists of a 0.4-second pulse, a 0.2-second pause, a 0.4-second pulse, and a 2-second pause. In some countries, the pulse is made by mixing a 400 Hz and 450 Hz sine wave. This tone is featured at the end of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" and near the end of their song "Young Lust."
In North America, the standard ringback tone is a repeating 2-second tone with a 4-second pause between. The tone is 440 Hz + 480 Hz.[1]
Most European countries, other than the UK and Ireland use tones which comply with European Telecommunications Standards Institute ETSI standards. All of these tones are 425Hz. Typically the pattern is 1 second of tone followed by 4 seconds of silence.
Also known as Caller tunes in some parts of the world (like India),[2] ringback music is a service offered by mobile network operators which enables subscribers to set music or even personalized recorded sounds as ringback tones.[3][4]
Early versions of personalized ringback tone systems have been invented by a couple of inventors, Mark Gregorek et al. (U.S. patent 5,321,740) and Neil Sleevi (U.S. patent 4,811,382). The first functional ringback tone replacement system was invented by Karl Seelig et al. (U.S. patents 7,006,608 and 7,227,929). In 2001 Seelig's prototype was described in the Orange County Register and the Economist Magazine kick starting the world wide development of ringback tone replacement.
Advertising over Ringback tones (AdRBT) was introduced using a range of models across several commercial markets in 2008. In America Ring Plus offered the first interactive advertisement platform. In Turkey, 4play Digital Workshop launched 'TonlaKazaan' AdRBT with Turkcell, and Xipto AdRBT launched in the United States with Cincinnati Bell wireless; OnMobile launched an Ad-supported Music RBT program in India with Vodafone. 4Play Digital workshop accumulated several hundred thousand users of their service in the first few months of commercial deployment, and received an innovation award in February 2009 at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. AdRBT typically rewards the caller or the called party with discounted Music RBT service, free minutes, cash, or other rewards in return for accepting advertising messages integrated with Music Ringback, or for selecting advertisements instead of music as a personalized advertising ringback.
In May 2011, Adfortel started the first ad sponsored call service in Austria with Orange[5], with users hearing a targeted advertisement instead of the regular waiting ring tone.
A Juniper Research report released in January 2011 that predicts that Ringback Tone Advertising will reach $780 Million Annually by 2015.[6]
Patents for personalized ringback tone delivery systems were first filed in Korea by Kang-seok Kim (10-1999-0005344) and in the United States by Mark Gregorek et al. (U.S. patent 5,321,740), Neil Sleevi (U.S. patent 4,811,382), and Karl Seelig (U.S. patents 7,006,608 and 7,227,929).
Karl Seelig et al. (U.S. patents 7,006,608 and 7,227,929)
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