Technology White Paper Transformation of Ring back tone and Ring Tone Karthick Rajapandiyan Balamurugan Balasubramanian Gopannan Ramachandran Introduction Nowadays there are myriad choices of generating revenue from customers by deploying innovative, demanding and challenging services. Telecom operators and providers are chasing behind those services which benefit the most. One such service is Ring Back Tone and Ring Tone service which caters wide spectrum of people in telecom world. The main advantages of Ring Back Tone and Ring Tone services are • Used in day to day life of any telecom customer. • Easily integrated with basic telephonic service. • Creating positive impulse and feeling to the customer using it. The purpose of this white paper is to present a basic introduction of Ring Back Tone and Ring Tone Service. This paper also gives a Comprehensive view of different type of Ring Back Tone and Ring Tone used in modern telecommunication industry. Table of Contents Ring Back Tone ................................................................ 4 Personalized Ring back tone ................................................ 4 Called party decided personalized Ring back tone ...................... 4 Calling party decided personalized Ring back tone ..................... 5 Ring Tone ....................................................................... 8 Called party decided personalized Ring Tone ............................ 8 Calling Party decided personalized Ring Tone to Called party (callee)/Push Ringer .......................................................... 9 Conclusion .................................................................... 9 References .................................................................... 10 Glossary ....................................................................... 10 Biographies ................................................................... 11 Ring Back Tone A ring back tone (RBT), also known as a "caller tune" or "call tone" or “Audible Ringing Tone” is the acoustic sound one hears when he/she is making a call. This sound follows the dialing of a number, and is sometimes replaced by a busy signal or a service message. Only the caller hears this tone. While the caller hears the ring back tone, the Called hears a separate ring tone. The ring-back signal may be generated by the called-party switch or by the calling-party switch, but it is not generated by the called telephone instrument. It is generally started and stopped at the same rate as the ringing signal itself but perhaps out of phase. Personalized Ring back tone In Modern days, a special kind of FUN DIAL ring back tone known as Personal Ring Back Tone (PRBT) has become popular. The PRBT service allows a served user to specify that a user defined alerting signal (e.g. music-clip) shall be sent to the calling party instead of the normal ring-back-tone. The alerting signal for PRBT users is provided by an external Media Server (MS) connected to the local exchange of the served user or via transit exchange(s). The MS is connected as N7 network element. The administration of the alerting signal nature (e.g. music, tone) and options (e.g. CLI dependency) is done via HTTP interface to the media server. Called party decided personalized Ring back tone It seems so dull to pick up a phone, dial a number, and always hear the same boring ring back tone sound… but that’s what prompted the creation of personalized ring back tones. Most of the mobile phone operator’s revenue contribution from its ring tone download business has grown steadily. Ring back tones allow Called subscribers to customize the idle call connection tone with music, celebrity greetings or even jokes. Callers hear the selected content (such as the latest hit song) of Called Party, until the call is answered. Thus with Personalized Ring back Tones solution, operators can offer their customers the possibility to personalize ring back tones. The PRBT solution works in concert with an IVR and an IN SCP/SEP to create a service that manages music content, royalties, subscriber configuration and provisioning. Called party who has subscribed to this personalized Ring back tone can customize greetings for caller groups or individuals and also decide which ring back tone to play at different times. This enable the ringback tone subscribers to give his friends and family a personal touch by playing different music or jokes while Caller wait for him to pick up the phone. Customized sound or information not only delivers entertainment services to the broader consumer market, but also offers value-added services to corporate users, who can leverage the feature to support marketing strategies Calling party decided personalized Ring back tone More and More subscribers are using personalized ring back tone service. i.e. Replacing the ring back signal with any acoustic sound presentation. In certain cases like CG party does not like the personalized ring back tone/ring back acoustic sound presentation of Called party. Some time ring back tone music will be played in different regional language which CG party does not know. Now the CG user decides not to listen to those CD party’s personalized ring back tone, but likes to hear normal ring back tone or CG parties personalized ring back tone. Nowadays it is possible for the CG party to override the personalized ring back tone of CD party’s by CG party’s preferred acoustic sound presentation CG party decided personalized ring back tone is implemented as follows: • CG party makes a call to Called party and he is intended to hear the normal ring back tone /personalized ring back acoustic presentation which is decided by Called party • But in the originating exchange, CG party has subscribed to override this CD party ring back tone by his own Ring back tone/acoustic presentation. • Originating Exchange replaces the CD party’s ring back tone by CG party decided personalized ring back tone. IMS call flows CG party decided personalized ring back tone is explained with call flows: Calling party subscribed to replace all his ring back tone by his own personalized ring back tone/acoustic sound presentation. When calling party calls any called party his ring back tone will be replaced by his own subscribed personalized ring back tone/acoustic sound presentation. This is a general feature it can be implemented both for PSTN and Soft switch. Note: CG party Ring back tone cannot be overridden if CD party is special party. Ring Tone Ring Tone is a sound or an audible alert given by a phone to indicate an incoming call or a message delivered to the user. Called party decided personalized Ring Tone This feature allows users to associate different ring tones with individual family members and friends. Calling Line Identity service helps to accomplish this service. Taking advantage of these features, a new ring tone maker trend has emerged. This service mostly depends on telephone set capability to play different Ring Tones. For example of playing different ring tone in mobile phone, many websites let users make ring tones from the music they already own (MP3, CD etc.) and upload directly to their mobile phone with no limit on the number of songs uploaded. In addition to the cost benefits, a key feature is the music editor that lets the user easily pick the part of the song they wish to set as a ring tone. Such services automatically detect the phone settings to ensure the best file type and format. Called Party decided ring tone Selection based on type of calling party In this service, a ringtone system is provided to a called party that wishes to have a particular ringtone annunciated for each of several types of calls from calling parties. In the ringtone system, for a call from a calling party, the calling party is prompted to identify the type of the call. The type of the call is received from the calling party, and if no type is received, the call is typed in a particular manner. A list of types of calls with respect to and as specified by the called party is maintained, where each type of call on the list has a corresponding ringtone specified therefore. The typed call is processed by determining from the list of types of calls for the called party the corresponding ringtone specified for the typed call, and by putting the call through to the called party with the determined ringtone. Calling Party decided personalized Ring Tone to Called party (callee)/Push Ringer Unlike Ring Back Tone, “Push Ringer” is advances made in Ring Tone. “Push Ringer" allows a caller to push an outgoing ringtone to a receiving phone allowing the caller, not the called person, to set the tone and override the phone's pre-set ringer. "Push Ringer", reverses the common ringtone model. It enables a caller to push an outgoing ringtone to the receiving phone allowing the caller, not the called person, to set the tone. The chosen Ringer is transmitted to the recipient's handset and temporarily overrides the phone's pre-set ringer. The ringers can comprise audio, video, animations, avatars or flash files. Closing the loop, if the called person likes the ringtone, the service also enables him or her to instantly buy a copy of the ringtone for his or her own phone. Push Ringer moves beyond traditional mobile personalization by both adding value to the ringtones users purchase for their own phones and providing content recommendation and impulse-purchase opportunities to the users' friends, family and co-workers. This new technology represents a vastly more active, expressive and compelling form of call personalization than existing in today's ringtone market which is otherwise showing signs of levelling off at only about 6% of mobile subscribers, worldwide, The Push Ringer leverages rapidly emerging broadband wireless telephone and wire-line VOIP networks. Push Ringer brings a new level of real-time interactive multimedia enhancement to telecommunications. Conclusion Thus in modern world, we have the advantage of providing an option to the caller to select his/her favorite multimedia file for playing as the ring-back.