Over the years the cell phone has evolved.  The design of the hand held device has gone from huge to super small back to a resonable size.  Not only did the physical phone change, but so did what the cell phone can do.  In the beginnng cell phones were used for making and receiving phone calls.  Now that may be the last thing some people use their cell phone for.  Another change was to what was heard coming out of the phone.  Ring tones went from being all the same to being one of the most diverse functions of a cell phone.  Here is a little info about the different types of ring tones and how they progressed.

A monophonic ring tone is a type of ring tone that is only capable of playing one sound at a time. Ring tones are the sounds cell phones make when a person calls the cell phone subscriber. These ring tones can be modified and personalized in such a way that a specific ring tone sounds for a certain caller. For example, the cell phone subscriber may program the cell phone to use a monophonic ring tone of a happy and fun song whenever his or her best friend calls. The subscriber may also program it to play a romantic monophonic ring tone when his or her significant other calls.

The monophonic ring tone was the first type of ring tone available to cellular subscribers. Today, polyphonic and full music ring tones are also available. The polyphonic ring tone was the first to follow the monophonic ring tone.

Unlike the monophonic ring tone, the polyphonic ring tone can play more than one tone at a time. Both polyphonic and the monophonic ring tones, however, can only play tone based versions of songs. Although polyphonic ring tones can play up to 40 notes at a time and sound more like the actual songs they are mimicking, they still do not sound as good as full music ring tones. In addition, lyrics cannot be played with a polyphonic ring tone.