The prevalence of ringtones and ring-back tones has reached near-ubiquitous heights over the past few years. With advances in mobile phones, including the sophistication of the technology, the frequency of usage by the world, and the pervasiveness of the medium even in younger generations, the notion of individualizing one’s phone has also become accepted and viewed as a necessity. With a wide range of ring-tone suppliers, from those pre-installed on phones to television commercials lauding the "latest and greatest" ringtones, choosing the best mobile tones download has become a somewhat complicated journey.

Choosing a mobile tones download comes down to the popularity of the music in question. Popular artists appear on virtually every ringtone service, and the most popular services extol their excellence by giving examples of ringtones based on songs near the top of the music charts. Some music publishers have their own proprietary software dedicated to the provision of ringtones.

Many of the tones provided by these publishers appear on the label, so most of the artists will likely be accessible to prospective downloaders. More obscure acts may be more difficult to find, however. Many of the more established acts show up on most searches, but "indie" acts become a bigger problem.

In light of this problem, one of the best advancements in ringtones has not been large businesses’ proprietary software. Instead, many "create your own" mobile tones download sites have appeared recently. These sites allow users to upload their own mp3s and convert them to ringtones.

In some cases, create your own mobile tones download sites also allow customization of the tone, such as clipping the song so only a specific portion plays, as well as other services like custom wallpapers. To implement the tone, users simply enter their cell phone number and the site sends the file, allowing users to download and save it. The best feature is the price: most of these sites allow tones to be created for free.

When choosing a destination for mobile tone downloads, users must consider the familiarity of the artist in question. If the artist is widely known, most of the more established ringtone suppliers will likely contain relevant files. If the artist is more obscure, the best option would be a create-your-own ringtone site where generating the ringtone does not depend on the service’s music library, but rather the user’s.