SK Telecom introduces new mobile phone service - New Services - Brief Article

Mobile Internet, The, Nov, 2002

More than one-half million Korean mobile phone subscribers signed up in the first month for a new service that lets them choose what people will hear when they call their phone instead of the boring "ring ring" of yesterday, in the latest innovation to personalize mobile phone use. SK Telecom is offering the service using an enhanced services platform from NMS Communications. Subscribers have already topped 3.5 million, creating a substantial new high margin service revenue source for SK Telecom.

Subscribers pay a small monthly fee for a limited selection of rings, and additional fees to select from thousands of ring sounds and melodies such as popular songs, classical music, and pre-recorded messages like "Happy birthday to you" on SK Telecom's network. They can choose tones for individual contacts--one tone for their spouse to hear, another for their boss, etc. They can even choose one tone for daytime and another for the evening. Users make their choices from either a web interface on a PC, mobile handset by WAP, or an interactive voice menu service and do not have to download any new tunes into their mobile phone. The tones are played by a server that replaces the ring-ring tone generator in the switch. This makes adding and changing tones fast and easy.