Cellphoneclue

2006-06-10T11:04:00.000-07:00

Ringtone juke box is the sound made by a telephone to indicate an incoming call. The term, however, is most often used to refer to the customisable sounds available on mobile phones. This facility was originally provided so that people would be able to determine when their phone was ringing when in the company of other mobile phone owners. Newer phones let the users associate a different ringtone juke box for each phonebook entry. Newer phones can also use short pieces of music as ring tones, and the sale of these has become a major success of the mobile music industry.

Ring tone advertising campaigns have become hugely popular, though they have also attracted a great deal of criticism.

A phone only rings when a special "ringing signal" is sent to it. For regular telephones, the ringing signal is a 90-volt 20-hertz AC wave generated from the switch that the telephone is connected to. For mobile phones, the ringing signal is a specific radio-frequency signal.

An alternative to a ring tone for mobile phones is a vibrating alert. It may be useful:

in noisy environments

in places where ring tone noise would be disturbing

for the hearing impaired