The present invention relates to method for providing a calling subscriber
with an arbitrary sound chosen by a called subscriber instead of a common
ringback tone (RBT) with no progress tone. In this present invention, if
a call is generated, a terminating exchanger starts paging of the called
and simultaneously requests a trunk connection to a sound db server
without waiting acknowledgement of the paging from the called based on
the first information on whether or not to replace an RBT and the second
information on a route to the sound db server that have been received
from a home location register (HLR), and provides a called subscriber
identification for the sound db server. Then, the sound db server
searches its db for a sound specified by the called, and provides the
found sound for the caller instead of a conventional RBT via the
terminating exchanger connected through a trunk. Through this sequential
procedure of network elements, a caller can hear a sound specified by a
called instead of a dry RBT with no progress tone.