Communications networks are widely used for nationwide and worldwide communication of voice, multimedia and/or data. As used herein, communications networks include public communications networks, such as the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), terrestrial and/or satellite cellular networks and/or the Internet.
The Internet is a decentralized network of computers that can communicate with one another via Internet Protocol (IP). The Internet includes the World Wide Web (WWW) service facility, which is a client/server-based facility that includes a large number of servers (computers connected to the Internet) on which Web pages or files reside, as well as clients (Web browsers), which interface users with the Web pages. The topology of the World Wide Web can be described as a network of networks, with providers of network services called Network Service Providers, or NSPs. Servers that provide application-layer services may be referred to as Application Service Providers (ASPs). Sometimes a single service provider provides both functions.
Historically, music was sold to customers on vinyl albums or records or on tape. Music later was digitally recorded on compact disc for sale to customers. The Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) encoding standard was developed that provided a format for coding audio and/or video files. The MPEG standard has been used to encode and compress media, such as music and audio, into files that can be more readily communicated over the Internet. Today, many service providers and/or retailers sell audio and/or video content over networks such as the Internet and/or cable television network that has been encoded, for example, using the MPEG encoding standard.
Service providers and/or retailers may also sell ring tones that can be used to customize the audible ring of a cellular phone, for example. Typically, a customer may select a particular ring tone that he or she would like to install from a list of available ring tones. The selected ring tone may then be downloaded over the Internet, for example, and stored on a device, such as a personal computer. The customer may then connect the cellular phone to the device using an input/output (I/O) interface, such as a Universal Serial Bus (USB) port, to install the downloaded ring tone on the cellular phone. Alternatively, the service provider or retailer may wirelessly transmit the selected ring tone to the customer's cellular phone via, for example, a Short Message Service (SMS) message. The cellular phone may decode the SMS message to complete the installation of the ring tone.