Ring-Through Tones

For my first effort, I submit my idea which I call ring-through tones. We all know how to set our cell phones to have a tone that is somewhat unique for ourselves to recognize that it is our phone ringing, and not someone else's. Most people, but not all, can also set individual ring tones for their favorite callers. It is a really cool ability that people really like.

Then, there is the ring-back tone that you can have play while the calling party is waiting for you to answer your phone. It's a way of saying, "I really like this song, so listen to the first ten seconds while I get ready to answer the phone." What I find annoying is the message that wastes several seconds by telling you, "Please enjoy the music while your party is being reached," before the music starts. Traditionally, people will answer the phone within six rings, by the old reckoning, where you would hear a tone as the phone on the other end was actually ringing. That is an amount of time of about 20 seconds, so if you have 20 seconds to play with, I wouldn't put the message at that beginning.

But this cool idea has to do with personal ring tones. Wouldn't it be cool if you could select a ring tone, and send it to the receiving party's phone ahead of your conversation? Technology being what it is, it would only take a few seconds to push a 20-second package of mp3 file across the cellular network, and have it begin playing on the other phone. Some hardware support would be needed, but considering what else cell phones can do, it would be a snap to add the functionality.

Admittedly, it would open up for new forms of abuse, like an mp3 file of curse words, and then call someone you don't like while they are at work and have their phone play it as a ring before you hang up on them. This could be addressed by having a feature like call block, which would only allow ring-through tones from trusted users.

OK, so it could take some time to take off, considering all the phones out there right now that wouldn't support this feature. But by the time everyone used up their two-year contract, it could become commonplace. Just remember, you saw it here first. And if you happen to make millions off of it, I only want 10 percent.