Abstract: An echo suppressor for use in the send path of the four-wire part of a long distance telephone circuit employs frequency-selective center clipping. The bandwidth of the channel in which echo occurs is subdivided in contiguous bands or subchannels by appropriate filtering, and each resulting signal is center clipped by a center clipper. Threshold control voltages are predicted from knowledge of the average speech amplitude distribution characteristic as a function of frequency. This characteristic is subdivided into the same frequency bands as that used by the center clippers, and the ratios of energies in the bands are used to equalize the ratios of the control voltages that determine the center clipper thresholds. This technique is implemented through the use of a peak rectifier, the input of which is coupled to the receive path of the echo suppressor and the output of which is connected to each of the filtered subchannels by a resistive dividing network.

Abstract: A low cost digital echo suppressor having break-in logic for overriding send-line interrupt operation. The send and receive signals are multiplexed and digitized. The digitized received signals are summed over a period of time to determine interrupt operation. The difference over a period of time of the receive and send line signals controls break in logic for overriding the interrupt operation.