Hand sets of yore were basic in nature and were made with the strict single purpose - a means for communication.  In as much so, their alerting ringtones also had only one purpose-to alert the user about an incoming call.  The strictly utilitarian hand set and the equally bland ringtones served their duties without fail.  These tones were composed in a monophonic format, which could play only one sound at a time, but at varied pitches, and came pre-loaded in hand sets at the time of manufacture itself. 
The first milestone in the development of ringtone occurred, we can say without doubt, when a Finland based company came out in 1998 with the first commercially available ringtone ever.  The tone, laid in the Ring Tone Text Transfer Language could be brought over the internet and transferred to a cell phone my means of an SMS, or in mobile phones with higher capabilities, through Bluetooth or infrared. 
However, the monotony of the sounds generated was a limiting factor.  Competition among nations like Finland, Japan and the United States for domination in the field during the ensuing years saw the development of polyphonic tones, which could play 16 different sounds at a given time.  This can be considered as the second milestone.  Phone melodies acquired almost music like quality at this stage. 
However, the biggest milestone in ringtone history came about with the advent of true tones.  These tones, as the name suggest were real life recordings of any sound that a human brain could conceive.  Customers, devoid of good choices till then, mucked them up with gusto. 
True tones are sometimes called real tones or master tones due to their versatility.  Any kind of customization and personalization can be done on them.  The added interest of masses on this new gizmo has made its business and supportive services a great profit making venture. 
However, people did not stop there.  Some recent customizations like the name tone, the video ring tone and the sing along tones have slowly started doing their rounds.  However, they cannot be classified as milestones because they are all part of the very successful true tone family. 
Latest high level sound technologies are involved in the making of real tones.  Some analysts aver that the development of sound technology has reached its pinnacle and there is no scope for major improvements in the near future, for either the music track industry or the caller tone industry.   
But consider this. At the end of the 18th century, people, including many world leaders, believed that man had already invented everything possible for the betterment of human life. They could not imagine about any more inventions. But we can see that millions of newer inventions occurred from there till now and more and more are coming out at a fast pace.  As such, we need not be pessimists and hope that one day, in the near future itself, the next landmark in the developmental history of ringtones will roll out, enthralling everyone, and bettering the lives of people with their soothing, rhythmic flow of music.
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