The pleasant ring tone, welcome tune in phones

“It is really amazing to hear your own voice in the middle of the street coming from someone else's phone as a ring tone,” said Ornab, a popular singer and composer whose track 'Tomar jonno nilche tarar' (The star-lit night for you) is one of the most popular ringtones just now.

Among the young and not-so-young, having a personalised ringtone is the norm. TV themes, Bangla classics or international pop songs, all can be downloaded directly to a handset either through an SMS, or for more advanced phones, a WAP internet site.

Recently, the country's major cell phone operators agreed to pay an amount per song to the artistes and producers as royalty although the exact mechanics of how this will work are still being hammered out.

At present users pay around Tk30 for a ringtone or a welcome tune, the music a caller hears while they are waiting for the receiver to answer. The download is registered and part of the sum goes to the cellphone and the rest goes to the ring tone, facilitating agency which runs the service.

The ring tone facilitator then passes part of this money on to the recording company or the artiste, whichever they have the contract with. Some artistes have their own individual contract with a facilitating agency; such as Balam, the rock musician, who has his contract with 'ice technology' and Ornab who has his with 'shabox' and 'ice technology'.

According to the top ring tone facilitator agencies, Balam is positioned first as his songs are downloaded most as ring tone.

Balam, who is currently enjoying popularity after unveiling his debut album 'Balam”, said he was thrilled and amazed when he heard his voice on other peoples' phones. He said he had taken a one off payment in advance from his agency 'shabox' as a royalty.

Ornab said that he has not received the royalty from the agency yet, but expected to get it soon, as his agency will submit the monthly report soon.

But even the ringtone market is susceptible to piracy, with Bluetooth technology allowing users to easily share tunes. In many cases this is just friends having fun, but in some areas it has already become a commercial operation, especially in shops selling cell phone accessories, such as phone casings, holders and recharge cards.

A salesman, asking anonymity, working in such a shop at Mirpur, said that they'd charged Tk 5 for sharing each song or ringtone. He said this was popular mostly among the school and college going teens.