Caller Ring Back Tone or CRBT has become major revenue earner for both teleom companies as well as value added service providers. Not to mention, music companies. Though, I personally prefer the “good old” ring back tone to the latest music number, but many people have been using it on their cell phone, or even land line numbers.

Occasionally, I keep getting mails about how CRBT can be implemented, recently one guy mailed me specifically, “could we implement CRBT locally in our PABX installed in our office ?”, It got me thinking, and I thought I would share my thinking here. Yes, anyone can implement CRBT or caller ring back tone ( Color Ring Back Tone is also used by some, specifically in Dialogic Application Notes) in their PABX system as long as it has digital interface for CTI boards. Technically, that is. Be careful with music copyright though!

But, in a way, CRBT was always present in PBX system in the form of HOLD music during transferring a call, call parking, call on hold ( in a limited way of course)! The same hold music was converted to CRBT which became very successful in terms of hype and revenue.

I have always maintained that CRBT is nothing but an IVR application which generates lot of money ( for Telecom companies) and which has brought IVR to masses! So, it order to implement CRBT, all you need is IVR applicaion with database integration!

Here is how one can implement CRBT on a ISDN PRI in a on premise PABX :-

• Every incoming call is send to IVR application by PBX which is connected PBX using ISDN link.
• IVR applications receives the incoming call on say channel A, retrieves “dialed number” information from the incoming call.
• IVR then checks the database if the dialed number has subscribed to CRBT and also a particular music.
• IVR now dials out the “dialed number” using separate and available channel ( say channel B) of the ISDN Link and checks if it is ringing. If yes, then it plays the particular music to the incoming call ( CRBT of dialed number for the caller). If not, it is busy, it will play busy tone or directly bridge both the channels, ie incoming and outgoing channels A and B.
• As soon as channel B detects call pick up by the “dialed number”, it will bridge both channel A and B.
• When any one of the parties disconnects, change back to original!

This scheme may not be the optimal solution for implementing CRBT as it uses two channels known as trombone, but this works! Did I mention, you must use Digital CTI board which supports call bridging feature ? Almost all Dialogic digital boards or equivalent from other manufacturers have this facility.

So, if someone is thinking of implementing CRBT for one’s office, you may see all people dialing each other, listening to music!

CRBT (Caller Ring Back Tone) is a very popular IVR application used in Telecom Industry. It is known as “Hello Tunes”, “Caller Tunes” in India. CRBT is a fairly simple IVR system which has a smart call routing and a IVR application which plays one audio file, a music as per choice by the CRBT subscriber. CRBT is one of the highest revenue earner for Telecom companies in voice based value added service (VAS) all around the world.

CRBT can also be used as very useful, targeted advertising tools where the IVR software will play an ad jingle instead of a number for chart topper, or a old hit. The ad jingle to be played can be chosen by the following criteria:
1. Caller Id : Since IVR application will know both the caller number and called party number, it can choose ad jingle based on the caller ID. For example, if the caller id is an land-line number, a ad jingle related to land line facilities should be played. When caller ID is a Airtel land line number, why not play a internet facilities available on Airtel land-line number ?
2. Area of Caller ID : Area of caller can be decided based on the caller id. In case the caller ID is a mobile number, first 4 digits of the caller ID will determine the area of the caller. And if the caller id is a land line number, the first 3 digits which is a STD (Subscriber Trunk Dialing) code which denotes an area. So, using this information, the ad jingle can be chosen.
3. Telecom Operator Wise : From the caller id and the called party ID (DNI, Dialed Number Identification), Telecom operator can be found out. Advertisement can be targeted by Telecom Operator too. For example, all BSNL caller would be played about 3G availability on BSNL network!
4. Integration with Billing Server : If IVR Server or CRBT Server is connected to billing server, than high paying customers, prepaid customer, post paid customer can be identified and accordingly ad jingles can be targeted.

Advantages of CRBT advertisement :
Advertising on CRBT is new. But it is obvious that there are certain advantages of CRBT advertising. It can be very targeted advertising. The advertiser would know exactly how many times ad jingles has been played and to whom. He would be able calculate his conversion rates.

I think CRBT advertisement would pick up in India soon. There are people who are experimenting on it. But we are still to see wide scale adoption of this advertisement platform.