The idea of ringback tones has caught on in a big way and cell phone owners go out of their way to create unique tones to entertain their friends with. They are fun and are easy to download and manage. They can be personalized and set so that any one friend or group of friends can hear one specific song that you've chosen to play when they call. You can set another tune for another group of friends.

Setting your specific ringback tone is easy to do too. All you need to do is go to your ringback tones website, then click on the Settings tab and assign your selected tones to your specific caller or callers. Some providers offer you up to 25 Caller ID assignments.

Tones you can choose from do not include just music. Cell phone users can choose from a wide selection of songs by original artists or even holiday tunes or amusing comedy clips. You could even set your phone to play different ringback tones at different times of the day. Called ?time of day functionality? this feature allows you to choose a specific tone to be played during a certain set time period only. At other times the default ringback tone will automatically be played.

In order to have access to ringback tones you need to register with an online provider and can choose any ringback tone you want upon paying a small fee. They can be copied, created, shared and edited but they cannot be customized. This is because they are stored by the carrier. What you can customize however, is how you use the various ringback tones that are available to you.