Ringtones are like hot cakes for the youngsters, the market is huge, estimated world wide sales of $ 2.5 Billion per year. The cost of a ringtone is ranging from $0.99 - $2.99. Most singers and performers provide rights for their melodies to be converted to ringtones versions. Survey shows that about 26% of cell phone owners downloaded at least once a ringtone.

Many people downloading more than one as you can customize and set the phone to play different ringtones per specific caller.

For instance if mom is calling the cell phone will play a certain ringtone and another one for dad and for your girl friend a different one so you don't have to guess who is calling you, it is totally personalized per caller.

There are four types of ringtones:

* Monophonic ringtones play a melody of a song one note at a time, with no harmonies.

* Polyphonic tones add harmonies to the song.

* Real-life ringtones include voices, quotes, or other strange, real sounds.

* Master tones are compressed clips of actual songs, as heard on the radio(not just their melodies or a simple harmonic version).

How do you download a ringtone?

There many web sites that offer a huge selections of lyrics and songs, themes from movies, hip-hop, pop, dance, singers, classics and you name it.

The selection is per specific cell phone model and the process is simple, fast and easy. You select a ringtone, choose your cell phone maker and model, you see on the screen an SMS code, you type it in your mobile phone and send, then an SMS message is sent to you with your ringtone to be installed in two short steps process.

It is estimated though that the ringtone download party will cool down a bit in the next few years as more cell phones will become an MP3 players of real music and other cool features.