Mobile phones and modern ringtones.
A telephone ring is the sound created when an incoming telephone call is get. The term originated from the fact that telephones notified the user to an incoming call by repeatedly striking a bell or bells, producing a ringing sound.
The first commercial mobile ring tones were produced and delivered in Finland in 1998 when a Finnish mobile operator Radiolinja (today Elisa) started their downloadable mobile ring tone service called Harmonium invented by Vesa-Matti Paananen.
A phone just 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 by the switch to which the telephone is connected. For mobile phones, the ringing signal is a particular radio-frequency signal.
Whereas elderly telephones simply used a pair of bells for the ringer, modern ring tones have become extremely diverse, leading to phone personalization and customization.
A ringtone or ring tone is the sound made by a telephone to show an incoming call. The term, however, is most often used to refer to the customizable 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.
