Apple Inc.

Ericsson Ab

Genband US LLC

Peter Yue

Rafi Rabipour

Chung-Cheung Chu

Lakhdar Bourokba

The present invention provides for echo cancellation circuitry and variable rate encoding circuitry to cooperate with one another to effectively provide comfort noise in an effective and efficient manner. The echo cancellation circuitry will use far-end signals to generate estimated echo signals, which correspond to the actual echo signals appearing in near-end signals. The estimated echo signals are essentially subtracted from the near-end signals in an effort to remove the actual echo signals from the near-end signals. The echo cancellation circuitry will monitor any residual echo signals in the resulting processed near-end signals and provide residual echo control signals that are indicative of whether the residual echo signals should be replaced with comfort noise. The residual echo control signals are used at least in part by the variable rate encoding circuitry to determine the encoding rate to use for encoding different portions of the processed near-end signals.

Enhanced echo cancellation

The present invention provides a technique for determining which nodes are to provide various functions on traffic along a particular communication path. Generally, a communication path may include multiple nodes between which and through which traffic is routed. These nodes may include the communication terminals at either end of the communication path, as well as various types of routing nodes along the communication path. Each node will send to other nodes in the communication path information identifying the local functions it is capable of providing to the traffic carried in the communication path, and if available, remote functions capable of being provided to the traffic by other nodes in the communication path. Each node will receive from other nodes in the communication path information bearing on the remote functions. Each node will access criteria to determine whether any local functions should be applied to the traffic.

Communicating processing capabilities along a communications path

A conversion entity and method for converting higher-rate speech parameters into lower-rate parameters including dimmed excitation parameters. The conversion entity comprises a first decoder configured to produce a target excitation from the higher-rate parameters, based on a first fixed contribution and a first adaptive contribution. The conversion entity also comprises a second decoder configured to produce a second adaptive contribution, and configured to selectably operate in a first or a second mode. In the first mode, the second adaptive component is generated based on the first fixed contribution for a previous frame, while in the second mode, the second adaptive component is generated based on a second fixed contribution for the previous frame. The second decoder operates in the second mode in response to a rate reduction request. A processing module determines the dimmed excitation parameters for generation of the second fixed contribution for the current frame, based on the target excitation and the second adaptive contribution.

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St. Laurent, Canada

Peter Yue