Packet based echo cancellation for VoIP networks

Abstract

In today’s modern telephony network, VoIP is fast emerging as one of the main communication techniques. However, the performance and the quality of VoIP are affected by echo. Packet Based Echo Canceller (PBEC) is introduced, as a solution to cancel echo in the VoIP network. PBEC can replace the current echo cancellers, which are located in the Public Switched Telephony Network (PSTN) central switches. The operating principle of the PBEC is explained and its advantages are highlighted. The performance of the PBEC using different speech codecs is also studied. Using the PBEC, a maximum Echo Return Loss Enhancement (ERLE) of 37.39 dB has been achieved when used with the Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) based speech codec. From the simulation results, it can be seen that the performance of the Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation (ADPCM) clearly matches the performance of the PCM based speech codec. The other major problem affecting the VoIP network is the issue of packet loss. This issue of packet loss has been successfully addressed in this paper by the insertion of random values. With the insertion of random values, the ERLE increases by 4.81 dB compared to when there is no insertion of random value. The PBEC with the utilization of random values would make the VoIP a better communication tool.