Almost everyone, no matter where they are from or how old they are, owns a cell phone. A very popular option on these phones are customized ring tones. A lot of people who have kept up with the latest technology, have different ring tones set to go off when different friends or relatives call them.

There is nothing new about a telephone ringing. The old phones we had to lease from the monopoly phone company back in the day, also made a sound when someone called. However, with current cell phones you can choose what sound you want to hear when a certain person calls you.

The personalization of cell phone ring tones actually plays a pretty important role besides just having fun or knowing who is calling you right now. Picture yourself eating at a table of 6 colleagues and you hear a cell phone ringing. Without being able to customize your ring tone, you would all probably be reaching for your jacket pocket or your purse to retrieve your cell phone as they would all sound exactly alike.

The beginning of ring tones is not very well known. In 1998 an inventor named Vesa-Matti Paananen and a Finnish mobile company, Radiolinja, came up with the idea. Ring tones are very popular not only in the United States, but also in Asia and Europe and other parts of the world.

The ring tone craze has created an industry that continues to generate billions of dollars in revenues. Some mobile phone companies release new ring tones for their subscribers for a small charge. However, you can easily download ring tones from the Internet but be careful what you look for as you might be getting malwares.

Cell phone ring tones vary from the popular pop songs which have evolved into Real tones, customized ring tones or composer ring tones which can play animal sounds, baby coos or cries and other personalized sounds or the latest karaoke ring tone. You can also choose from a monophonic ring tone (common in old cell phones) or polyphonic tones (characterized by up to 72 tone types),

No matter if you use your cell phone for work or play you can make them more useful by assigning ring tones to everyone in your address book. This will make it easier for you to identify who is calling even before you look at the cell phones screen. Just keep in mind most phones still have the vibrating alert. Using this feature could save you some embarrassment in certain situations.