History

History
The first commercial mobile phone with ring tones was the Japanese NTT DoCoMo Digital Mova N103 Hyper by NEC, released in May 1996.[1] It had a few preset songs in MIDI format. In September 1996, IDO, the current au, sold Digital Minimo D319 by Denso. It was the first mobile phone where a user could input an original melody, rather than the preset songs. These phones proved to be popular in Japan. Kētai Chakumero Do-Re-Mi Book (ケータイ着メロ ドレミBOOK, "Mobile Ringtones Do-Re-Mi Book"), a book published on July 1998 introducing the "notes" of popular songs sold more than 3.5 million copies.
The first downloadable mobile ring tone service was created and delivered in Finland in autumn 1998 when a Finnish mobile operator Radiolinja (today Elisa) started their service called Harmonium, invented by Vesa-Matti Pananen.[2], the Harmonium contained both tools for individuals to create monophonic ring tones and a mechanism to deliver them over-the-air (OTA) via SMS to a mobile handset. On November 1998, Digitalphone Groupe, the current SoftBank Mobile, started the similar service in Japan