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Why can't some phones not receive ringtones by SMS or wap download?

From Eric Bernatchez, About.com Guide

Question: Why can't some phones not receive ringtones by SMS or wap download?

Answer: Short answer: because many cell phone service providers ask the manufacturers to block that possibility, so that their subscribers are forced to buy their ringtones instead of downloading some for free.

But there is no rule of thumb: some Samsung phones, for instance, will not offer a &save& option when browsing to a MIDI ringtone through the wireless Internet, but others will... Sprint PCS phones don't offer a save option, but most of their phones can still accept downloaded ringtones by using the special GCD format found on this site.

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