For consumers it's quite impossible to make any sense of the ring tone terminology. It is confusing as different words are being used to describe the same thing or when carriers and download sites invent their own brand names for ring tones.
By now most people know there is a difference in ring tone quality. Some people still use ring tones that say the bliip, bliip. Technically those ring tones are monophonic ring tones. The play only one tune at the moment.
Compared to monophonic ring tones polyphonic ring tones sound more like music. Polyphonic ring tones can play several notes and sounds simultaneously. Polyphonic ring tones are also known as midi ring tones. Some carriers and cell phone manufacturers talk about Hi-Fi ring tones or mobile melodies.
Then we have different polyphonic ring tones. Motorola Base Tracks or groovetunes are special polyphonic ring tones which you can edit. And there is also a quality level for polyphonic ring tones. A polyphonic ring tone can be of polyphony level 4, 16, 24, 40 or 48. A bigger number is better. A level 4 polyphonic ring tone can play 4 tones at the same time.
Nokia also has their own special ring tones called True tones, which allows users to have songs and special effects as ring tones.
The latest thing is 3G audio ring tones that are full-length ring tones or music files. The format of 3G audio ring tones can be MP3, AAC or any other music files. 3G stands for for third-generation mobile telephone technology and 3G ring tones means ring tones that are downloaded via 3G.
It is the "iPod revolution" that brought music to mobiles. Today the so called music phones support the popular MP3 audio format and the AAC audio format used by Apple's iTunes software.
