Ringtones is now a multi-billion dollar industry and our appetite for ringtones shows no abatement. As with anything in life why pay for something when you get it for free?

The search for free ringtones grows everyday but do they really exist. We all see the ads "Free Ringtones" but where is the catch? Usually this a get 1 free ringtone by subscribing for premium services which can end up costing you 10's of dollars before you realise it.

As the market has grown so have the ringtones. In the old days of beep beep phones free ringtones were readily available and still are as keypress ringtones which you could just enter into your phone by your phones composer module. They were most popular with Nokia and Motorola phones but free ringtone converters are available to change the keypress codes needed to enter into different manufactures composers.

Then came polyphonic ringtones. Polyphonic ringtones are made up of multiple channels to give a more realistic sound. Ultimately they are just midi files which are freely available on the internet in their thousands. A quick search on Google for Free Midi Files produces over 4,000,000 results so finding your favourite shouldn't be too much of a problem. All you need do then is upload to your phone with a datacable, infra-red or bluetooth connection. If that's not possible then there are also sites which allow you to upload files to their WAP servers and you download your chosen free polyphonic ringtones direct to your cell phone.

Next came MP3 ringtones also commonly know as true tone or real sound ringtones. With the explosion of mp3 files and the use of mp3 players the chances are you may already have the sounds you want on your mobile phone as your ringtone. Fortunately there is software available on the internet that will help you do this and adds the advantage of being able to edit your mp3 files so it sounds exactly like you want it to. If you just want to hear the chorus, or the intro it lets you cut out the sections you don't want leaving you with only the bits you do want to hear. An added bonus is also the ability to increase the volume of the ringtone if you need to. If you can cut and paste a text file you can edit your own free mp3 ringtones.

Philip Nicosia is the webmaster of Ringtones. It is a site providing free ringtones and information on how to get free polyphonic ringtones and free MP3 ringtones.