Symphonic handphones

In Singapore, handphones (or cellphones as they may be known outside of Singapore) are almost ubiquitous. The penetration rate last year was 96.2% and is expected to rise marginally to 97.2% this year (3G subscriber base seen doubling) By 2008, this will hit 103.8%!

Singaporean's change handphones often (sorry, I don't have the statistics). Of course, new models generally have better features and are smaller in size. But one of the features that is always a bane to some must be the myriad ringtones that users choose for their handphones. First, there were the single tones which then gave way to polyphonic ringtones. But of late, ringtones, if they may still be called that, have become passe on new phone models. These newer phones employ 'symphonic' tones, which is even more irritating.

The symphonic 'blast-tones' are actually pop songs, although I don't think they are those that have won any awards. Its so irritating to hear such songs blast themselves out of handphones to alert of an incoming call and being cut off almost abruptly the next second when the person responds to the call. I wonder, why have such blast-tones anyway if you are not interested in listening to these songlets? Perhaps people carrying such phones are either near deaf (that's why they need the blast of music) or they really want to irritate others.

Whichever it is, I am now genuinely irritated by them. And we may be in for the long haul on this as MP3 converge with cellphones - well, this has already happened.