NEWS The growth of ringback tones in Europe is set to mean hundreds of millions of euros in extra revenues for mobile phone operators - but that growth is below some previous estimates and held back by certain factors, not least confusion over what the service is.
Not to be confused with ringtones - which many people are now comfortable with buying over-the-air, sometimes for polyphonic handsets - ringback tones involve the calling party hearing a song or film excerpt or DIY message left by the called party instead of a brrring brrring sound (or brrrrrrrring in some countries).
This is a further phase in mobile phone personalisation and one that analyst house Ovum today said will be worth $721m in Western Europe in 2008, up from around $16m this year.
However, in only February this year, mobile entertainment company Netsize put a figure of $1.5bn across Europe by the end of 2005.
Such forecasts were somewhat understandable. In South Korea, a spin-off from SK Telecom called widerthan.com has done well, enabling SKT's ColoRing service. It costs consumers around $2 per month, which now translates into $8m in monthly revenue and 30 per cent user-base penetration.
Ovum points out that in the Philippines, the launch of a service from Global Telecom led to 100,000 eager users in its first week.
But all is not well. Ovum and others say ringback tones are difficult to explain and therefore market and managing the service can be complicated at a network level for operators, at device level and in terms of securing rights with content companies such as music labels.
T-Mobile has had some success in Europe since its ringback launch across the Czech Republic, Germany and the UK at the end of last year, with other operators such as Tele2 Sweden, Telefonica Spain and Vodafone Germany now following. But all may want to note the performance of operators such as M1 in Singapore and NTT DoCoMo who haven't done well - and that's in Asia where such services are generally thought to catch on faster.
Ovum said Western Europe is set to account for around 30 per cent of ringback tone sales.
Comments
There are 7 comments. Join the discussion
1. Craig
While I can't offer a better suggestion, the term 'RingBack' is misleading. I think this will lead to increased delays in convincing consumers what this service entails.
2. anonymous
Surely, in the UK at least, the use of the term "ringback" is going to cause problems from the start? The term is already in use (at least by BT) for the notification service for previously-dialled and engaged numbers becoming free to call back. In this context, a “ringback tone”, without further explanation, would occur to most people as being the series of three, short rings which indicate that the engaged party has now cleared their line?
Unless I’m misreading this article (quite possible!), wouldn’t a better description of the service being touted here be simply “dialled ring tone”, since it is the ring tone heard by the dialler which is unique to the dialled person or service?
3. Richard
This sounds like holding-queue hell.
I can't imagine anything more irritating than calling somebody and being greeted with a misnamed "Ring back".
Forgive me if I sound like I am the grown up side of thirty but I have never paid for a ringtone, never used a cameraphone (I have digital cameras for that) and I will be food for the worms before anyone convinces me to pay a *monthly* subscription to wind up my callers with an excerpt from "F***k it (I don't want you back)" or a Michael Cane quote. Every caller will think there are in holding-queue hell. Give me Brrr, Brrr any day.
Actually, just give me a reliable mobile phone without built-in redundancy and a low cost, reliable mobile service that doesn't expect my monthly contract to fund ridiculous, overpriced 3G license bids and launch spurious novelty services whilst cutting back on serious business services. So not 0range then.
4. Andy B
surely it would be better to call it good old music on hold!!!!
has Peter Mandleson and his team of spin doctors had anything to do with the marketing of this!!!
5. Jim Price
Thanks, Richard. Now I know what the mis-named 'ring-back tone' really is, just another pointless money-spinner for network operators and content providers. If I call someone, all I want to know is that their phone is ringing (no, not even musicking!), not to hear a distorted rendition of the latest pop tune, and that there is a fair chance they might just answer it!
6. Mike W
It's NOT "hold" music though - if you're on hold, you have actually connected and are being charged for a call, whereas what they're talking about is the "calling" call progress tone.
Since modems and other automated devices rely on detecting certain frequencies as call progress monitors, I would have thought that changing call progress tones would have contravened some ITU standard or other.
7. Richard Hill
Regarding the comment:
"Since modems and other automated devices rely on detecting certain frequencies as call progress monitors, I would have thought that changing call progress tones would have contravened some ITU standard or other."
Readers may wish to note that ITU-T Recommendation E.180 "Technical characteristics of tones for the telephone service" does in fact standardize tones such as the dialling tone, busy tone and ringing tone. ITU-T Recommendations are not binding, but national regulations may or may note impose requirements on the tones in question.
The current status of tones in use around the world, as reported to ITU, can be found at:
http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/ob-lists/op-bull/2003/781.html
Best,
Richard Hill
Counsellor, ITU-T Study Group 2