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Source: Wireless Asia

The ringtone download market really got a kick along from the introduction, first by Samsung two years ago, of polyphonic tones. Now the music and the wireless industries are abuzz at the emergence of "mastertones". Also known as realtones, truetones or songtones, these are the actual song extracts, not just electronic simulacrums, and the impact will be enormous.

One of Japan's biggest hits in the past year is a mastertone, or "chaku-uta", service backed by five local record labels, called Label Mobile. Even though it's much more expensive than the standard ringtone download, it last-year generated 15 million downloads on an installed base of only to million devices.

Japanese have been debating whether these will replace ring-tones or become a separate service. Ludivico Ciferri, a researcher at Tokyo VC Mobile Internet Capital, predicts outright that mastertones will eventually replace ringtones.

Meanwhile, the new new thing in Japan is the "chaku-motion", the mobile video clip. The prospect of being able to sell a clip of Andy Lau or Zhang Ziyi saying "you've got a call" to China's 300 million phone users is an irresistible one to operators and content owners alike.

But it's a bigger business challenge, requiring the participation of the artists themselves as well as the commercial arrangements with the labels and agencies and the DRM protections. That's some way ahead and, besides, requires 3G-level bandwidth.

Right now, there's a lot of customizing that doesn't take much bandwidth, but there can be other problems.

Like names, for example. What the Koreans call the "color ring-tone" is known variously as the "ringback tone" in China or the "hello tone" in Hong Kong or the "connecting tone". Maybe the "answering tone" is the best name --the tone the caller hears while waiting for the call to be answered. It's a service that generated $100 million in Korea in its first year.

The content world, even ringtones, brings with it issues of taste and censorship.

Some Chinese are complaining about the questionable nature of ringtones. It's possible to download sounds of machinegun fire and explosions, or answering tones with messages like "Your wife has been in an accident!". And a number of content providers have been caught in China's recent crackdown on pornography, which the MII has signaled is a campaign that will last for a year. China Mobile recently cut 45 adult chat services.

The ringtones concept can cause discomfort for consumers, too. Siemens 65 series phones play a loud tune when the battery runs out. So loud that in fact the company has issued a warning that it might injure users' eardrums. There is an upgrade on the way.