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The phenomenon of effective phase synchronization in stochastic oscillatory systems can be quantified by an average frequency and a phase diffusion coefficient. A different approach to compute the noise-averaged frequency is put forward. The method is based on a threshold crossing rate pioneered by Rice. After the introduction of the Rice frequency for noisy systems we compare this quantifier with those obtained in the context of other phase concepts, such as the natural and the Hilbert phase, respectively. It is demonstrated that the average Rice frequency R typically supersedes the Hilbert frequency H, i.e. R > or = H. We investigate next the Rice frequency for the harmonic and the damped, bistable Kramers oscillator, both without and with external periodic driving. Exact and approximative analytic results are corroborated by numerical simulation results. Our results complement and extend previous findings for the case of noise-driven inertial systems.