Ringtone

[fishin4me]

I've heard in Asia today, many people are using special ringtone to replace the traditional "too-too...", instead they can choose to play mp3 songs, or recorded greetings while waiting for someone to answer the call. It works like a PBX playing music on hold.
This is not like changing your ringtone on you cell number. The actual caller is hearing music rather than ringtone..make sense?
I'm wondering if this goes against any Belcor specifications for ringtone?

 

[ISDNman]

If it is the cell phone user that is hearing non-standard ring tones then it is probably legal.

If outside callers dialing *to* the cell phone hear this this is most definitely against ITU specs (not sure about Bellcore).

About 9 monthes ago I heard that Sprint was going to introduce this "feature" and I made the following post to a different forum on this subject:

I have before me ITU-T Recommendation E.180/Q.35 My comments
are in [brackets].

Series E: Overall Network Operation, Telephopne Service, Service Operation and Human Factors

Sereies Q: Switching and Signalling; International automatic and semi-automatic working - Tones for use in national signalling systems

Technical characteristics of tones for the telephone service

Summary - This Recomendation sets the limits and recommended values of cadences, frequencies and levels for tones used in the telephone service. Those technical characteristics are relevant for audible tones applied within the network or for those generated at the digital terminal equipment.

Approved March 1998


The final paragraph of the first section (General) states: All administrations and operating agencies are requested to submit a concise technical description of any new or changed network tones to the ITU-T whenever such tones are introduced. The technical details should include; level, frequencies, cadence, duty cycle, modulation and any other parameters [song title?] that are required to fully describe the new or changed network tone. [wow, I guess this will keep Sprint and the ITU busy!]

Levels: -10 dBm0. Recommended limits should not be more than between -5 dBm0 nor less than -15 dBm0 measured with continuous tone.

For the Special Information Tone, a difference in level of 3 dB is tolerable between any two of the three frequencies that make up the tone.

5 Ringing Tone
5.1 Ringing tone is a slow period tone, in which the tone period is shorter than the silent period.

The *recommended* limits for the tone period (including tolerances) are from 0.67 to 1.5 seconds. For existing exchanges, the *accepted* upper limit for the tone period is 2.5 seconds. [emphasis added]

The *recommended* limits for the silent period seperating two tone periods are 3 to 5 seconds. For existing exchanges, the *accepted* upper limit is 6 seconds. [emphasis added]

5.2 The ringing tone cadence should be similar to the cadence used for applying ringing current to the called subscriber's telephone set, but the cadences need not be synchronized....

5.3 The recommmended frequency for the ringing tone is between 400 and 450 Hz. The accepted frequency should not be less than 340 Hz, nor more than 500 Hz. Frequencies between 450 and 500 Hz in the accepted frequency ranges should, however, be avoided. Administrations adopting a new single ringing tone are recommended to use 425 Hz. [NOTE: This restriction regarding frequencies between 450 and 500 Hz is important. Failure to limit energy in this band could cause audible rinigng to cause "talk off" on older SF trunks]

The ringinig tone may be modulated by a frequncy between 16 to 100 Hz, but such modulation is not recommended for new equipment. If the accepted frequency is more than 475 Hz, no modulation be a lower frequency is allowed.

[Wow, operating within these restrictions is going to make for some *really* exciting ringing tones Sprint. How much did you say you are going to charge?]

5.4 Where digital tone generation is applied, the frequency for ringing tone should be the same as that recommedned for analogue generated tones (see Annex A).

5.5 Where special ringing tone (see A.2.6/E.182) is implemented, it must be a tone similar in most respects to the national ringing tone it represents. It may be constructed by making any of a wide variety of possible variations on the ringing tone.. However the tone is contructed, it must be shown by appropriate emprical testing with caller to cause callers to wait for an
answer if they do not know about the tone and its meaning. This test must be conducted with a sample of at least 100 persons who do not know the tone, and must show that on at least 95% of occasions when they hear special ringing tone, the interpret the tone to mean that they should wait for an
answer. The purpose of this requirement is to prevent confusion on the part of callers, especially International callers, who are not knowlegable about the tone.

[seems to me this limits them to variations of the real tone - for example old fashioned tones like those generate in analog verus the newer digital phones. Somehow I think that is not what Sprint has in mind. I don't suppose anyone at Sprint has any idea what the ITU is anyway. And if they did, I guess their attitude is much like our President's "we'll do what we darn well please".]

{the standard then goes on to give definitions for various other tones)

(End of ITU quote]

This is NOT ALLOWED under ITU standards and therefore is illegal under treaty in countries where such standards have been adopted.

Who needs Internaitonal standards and cooperation and interoperability when the "free market" is so efficient at solving each and every technical or non-technical problem ever encountered.

 

[Sympology]

I believe (may be wrong) but it is actually music on hold. they still initially get the ring ring, but then goes to Music. No different to calling a call centre.
However it does mean you start getting billed straight after the initial ring as the call is classed answered.

Stu..


Only the truly stupid believe they know everything.
Stu.. 2004

 

[johnpoole]

you more then likely right on that, after answer supervision, i could send any voice quality signal i wanted, prior to that, the ring bach heard by the user is a product of there 1st hop switch. but in asia, switching arangements may be different

john poole
bellsouth business
columbia,sc

 

[ISDNman]

Ah yes Stu, *that* would be legal. Very interesting. Very nice for your friends and family.

Can anyone confirm this? If someone has such a phone we could call it from a PBX or ISDN terminal and look to see if call supervision completes prior the caller "answering" (e.g before the microphone connects to the speech path).

I wonder if in addition to sending answer supervion to the network if they start billing the mobile user for minutes. Probably.

 

[AdmanOK]

Yeah, I would tend to think this would be what's going on. Half the time when I call places these days you don't get a ring tone, you just get dropped right into an IVR... no different to be dropped into a music stream while your call is delivered.

 

[fishin4me]

Looks like this thread drew some interest. The reason I brought it up is becase we have a client using an IVR application to call out to their customers. Since the answer mode is expecting a more standardized ringtone (on time and off time) the IVR does not work as expected. The client basically wants to play a survey to their customers. But what happens is the survey starts to play once the 'musicial' ringtone starts since it assumes this is voice of a person.
So I was just trying to figure how to set up an answer mode to conform to this. I don't think it's possible.

 

[ISDNman]

Johnpoole,

I hate to have to correct you, because I respect you highly. But....

Assuming an SS7 environment, busy and fast busy are generated by the first hop switch, but this is not true for audible ringing. The reason for this is because audio cut through needs to be very fast or the calling part will hear 'ello' or 'lo' instead of 'hello'.

On a PRI therefore, the PBX provides audible ringback. Digital cell phone presumably have an SS7/ISDN-like common channel signaling protocol (never had a reason to learn more about this). If this is the case, it may be quite easy to allow the cell phone to act in this PBX-like way.

So, possibly the terminating cellular office could allow the digital cell phone to generate the actual ringing.

But unless it give one real ring first, it seems to be clear it is not ITU/CCITT compliant.

Fish - interesting topic. I agree with your conclusion - it would not be hard to create a detector flexible enough to detect all or most ITU compliant tones. But detecting these random ring tones would be impossible.

There may be an answer though (but not something you could probably do on your own). You need to use trunks with answer supervision. Once answer supervision is received you need a "'hello...hello' detector". The predictive dialer folks have this pretty well figured out (I never say hello twice - I say hello, wait 3 seconds and then hang up just to fool them).

These days the best options for trunks with supervision is ISDN (though there certainly are analog trunks that do this, and some types of T1 robbed bit signaling can do so).

I remember reading some material from one of the predictive dialer companies proudly announcing how they were adding support from PRI since this would help beat products that simulate a special information tone since it the case or real SIT there should be no answer supervision (why on earth they would deploy technology meant to get through to customers that have gone out and spent money to buy equipment to avoid telemarketers is beyond me - seems like they'd make very poor prospects).

Good luck

PS- Maybe we need to confirm wether or not the call is being answered. If not, trunks with answer supervision would solve the problem with nothing else needed (what types of trunks are you using?). If you can identify a number with this "feature" I could call into it from an ISDN line and try to look to see if answer supervision occurs before the musical ringer. or not till the called party answers.

 

[johnpoole]

you may be right, my information is dated, i worked dms central office in another lifetime. that said listen to the internal ringback of any non-nortel switch, it is unique to the maker, the external ring back is the default nortel.. ie i can tell from ring which usa switch i called.. but if i call overseas ringback is unique to the country, not the pbx type.. either way cut through post answer supervision is in the milli seconds. unlike a cell, which seems to be when ever they feel like it. but then so is ring back. i assume there is more then one protocol in service here. i do know from a dms, you monitior for answer supervision or answer tone, depending on the line type, and you provide ring back until you rec either of those from the called party. but all this was decades before voip, or pri. i installed the 1st customer demarked t1 in the state i was working at the time. prior to that only central office to central was a t1 customer.. because of the high voltage used at the time, we used pins 1 2 9 10 on old 16 gauge open wire between offices.

and don't ever worry about correcting me, that's how i learn and i post from decades of mistakes. thanks and have a star

john poole
bellsouth business
columbia,sc

 

[johnpoole]

the ivr has to see answer supervision, that is why it will start it's app, it usually doesn;t "listen" as much as it monmitors line condition.. for a test, answer it and don't say anything.. i've never used one that waited for a voice response... sorta like a used car salesman

john poole
bellsouth business
columbia,sc