Cell Phones Ring Tones
By Tony Rutherford

Everyone with a cell phone has seen ads either on the Internet or at their service providers relating to ringtones. For the uninitiated, your phone comes with ten or twenty variations of a simple ring. But, in a crowd, if someone has the same carrier, you may think your phone is sounding, when it's someone else's.

To eliminate the sameness, I determined to find one that more reflected my personality. That meant I wanted a movie theme or two. Finding was easy, getting and paying was not. In fact, there are scams aplenty on the web. When you click an ad for ten tones and enter your number, unless you read the FINE PRINT extremely carefully, you likely sign up for some kind of $9.99 per month subscription that has nothing to do with tones.

Entering the title of a song in Google brings up mostly these tricky ads. You can recognize them as they proclaim, "No credit card necessary" and prompt you to enter your ten numerals and carrier. If you do, and click OK, you'll see the dreaded charge on next month's bill.

Since cell phone carriers often have a captured customer base i.e. those on contract, the company offers new ringtones in one version or the other. You can go to the Internet, search for a tone, play a sample, then click to send it to your phone and pay about $1.99 per song.

But, what if you know the song(s) you want, but they are not on the carrier's site? You see, a few Internet sites offer you less than $10 a year access to a wide scope of selections, but to retrieve the tone you have to download it to your phone from the net. If you have a browser on your phone, sounds simple, NOT!

In this case, I received a text message to use the phone to go on the Internet and pick up the tone. Unfortunately, if you have big hands it's hard to get all the letters and numbers entered exactly right.

A trip to the carrier's offices did not accomplish anything except frustration. One clerk told me that only the ones from the carrier would download. I had two downloaded improperly. I clumsily displayed my punching talent; she did not offer any help, except: go home and do it on your home computer.

Let's see, a one day Internet pass plus two tones. Now, they would not work properly. She said do it again and the duplicate billing of the same tones would be removed. What about the OTHER site? I mean, I really wanted that theme. "I don't know."

A trip to a different office produced, "It won't work." Now, by surfing to the website of the phone carrier and the phone manufacturer, one or both sold a computer- to-phone cord, so that the desired tone could be downloaded to the computer then transferred to the phone. That's almost as bad as transferring pictures and/or videos. One or more carriers want you to upload to only their site for a fee. I selected a phone with a mini-card access so I could go straight to my computer.

As I inquired on the Internet, at least one site webmaster ( http://www.freeringers.net ) offered some helpful troubleshooting even as the carrier had displayed on the site: "While Alltel has a Multi- Media Service (MMS service), it's not a full MMS service (probably because they don't have their own network). Also, the ability to download to Alltel phones is hit or miss. Some phones work, some don't, some only work in certain areas or at certain times when they connect to a certain cellular network. Also, when you use a data cable, you need to know how to use it as we don't have any ability to know how your cable works on your phone.

Some data cables don't even offer the ability to send ringtones and wallpaper background screens. Some can only be used for phonebook editing or Internet. It all depends on the phone, and what software comes with the cable. We've never even seen this in action, only heard of people doing it. So by request, we added the PC Link option to our service for those people who have a data cable, know how to use it, and know it works with ringtones and/or wallpaper. This site pays royalties and had the tone. But, they indicated, as above, I still had download difficulty.

Yes, I heard the melody, but it did not download. So, I went out to find a connection. (Tip: Best Buy has some software that sells you multiple phone cord types --- in case you change phones --- connected to a USB cable.

When I got back to them about the software, the administrator of freeringers.net advised:
"Typically, people that use our service with a data cable already have a data cable that came with their phone. Realistically, if you purchase some software from Best Buy that comes with a data cable, you probably won't need our service, as the software is a duplicate of ours. The people that use a data cable with our service already have the cable, and have no software, just the cable. The software Best Buy is talking about is probably ringtone software, like ours, but in a PC-based program instead of online software like ours. Just a different way to skin a cat."

Finally, I downloaded the tone (a movie studio fanfare) and put it on my phone. (Note: During the Google search, two additional sites similar to freeringers.net were: http://www.mobiholic.us and http://www.ringophone.com.)

However, my cranial cavity had already started boiling. I mean, like, gee, why did not the carrier simply sell me a cord (or suggest I buy one)? Could it be that they wanted to keep all the purchases from them, even though they not only did not have what I wanted but they had one improperly titled.

During this exercise in a consumer scam odyssey, I did find (addresses to follow) one of the most complete sites for sounds and tones. All properly licensed with original artist.

In fact, you could even have, for instance, Clark Gable uttering, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," each time someone called. They have phrases such as this from hundreds of films and TV programs. Uniquely, http://www.audiosparx.com has thousands of brief tunes and phrases such as Clint Eastwood proclaiming, "Make My Day," a cutesy holiday "angels get his wings" bit from "It's a Wonderful Life," and, of course, the Governator Arnold uttering many of his classic one-liners. The site does not limit itself to action either, comedy bits can be selected there also.

Themes range from "Battlestar Galactica" to "Sex in the City." The license agreements are very specific --- one for just on a computer, one for a tone, another for a casual non-professional use. The cost? About $1.50 to $3.50 per item.

I don't know about you, but I can think of lots of movie phrases that would make mischief and practical jokes, which would be well worth a single or double purchase. You could download the voice of a star of the opposite sex and with a little practice, you might make an 'ex' really, really jealous and really, really, reconsider breaking up. Then again...maybe not.