Most people who have had a few phone conversations, whether on traditional phone lines or over the internet, have experienced that annoying echo in the background which can make it tough to have an intelligible conversation. The person speaking might be able to hear their own voice repeating what they just said a second later, or the person listening might be hearing double in a way that makes it tough to understand what it being said because two voices are speaking on top of each other. And imagine the kind of havoc echo can play wreak on a conversation if both people are speaking and echoing at once? Well, that is why echo cancellation is such an important function and option with phone communication.
Common Causes of Echo
Echo can occur for a number of reasons. It can be caused by the device being used, if sound from the speaker is picked up by the microphone. Echo can also be caused by delay, especially in a VoIP situation. Because data is being transmitted via the internet, the strength of the connection and the configuration of the network can make things either smooth and fast or slow and choppy. And if the connection is slowing things down, there is a good chance that packets of data will be lost in transmission and echo and interference can occur. Fortunately, there is technology to prevent these things from making a conversation impossible to carry on. Echo cancellation is the solution providers turn to.
What Echo Cancellation Does
The name is pretty indicative of exactly what echo cancellation does; it detects and removes the effects of echoing in a call quickly and efficiently. When everything is working properly, there will be no loss of voice quality in the call, even if there is background noise which causes more interference and audio data for the echo canceller to evaluate. It can be a bigger challenge today than ever before as there are more communication options for phone conversations, like VoIP. Echo cancellation solutions have been developed for many different communication options so that measures are in place to prevent an echo from being created at all, or removing it if it has become a part of the vocal data.
Echo Cancellation Methods
There are three basic terms which may be used to describe common methods of echo suppression and cancellation:
- Acoustic Echo Suppression
- Acoustic Echo Cancellation
- Line Echo Cancellation
In all of these, the canceller keeps the vocal data organized and clear enough to understand for both call parties. You won’t hear the echo of your own voice, and the overall quality of the call is assured. At least one if not all of these methods will be in place with a quality service.
