Method to generate telephone comfort noise during silence in a packetized voice communication system

• US 6,643,617 B1
• Filed: 05/22/2000
• Issued: 11/04/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 05/28/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Ip Gem Group, LLC
• Original Assignee: Zarlink Semiconductor Inc. (Microchip Technology Incorporated)
• Inventors: Beaucoup, Franck, Wood, Robert Geoffrey
• Primary Examiner(s): Banks-Harold, Marsha D.
• Assistant Examiner(s): ARMSTRONG, ANGELA A
• Application Number:
  US09/577,420
• Time in Patent Office: 1,261 Days
• Field of Search: 704/233, 704/212, 704/220, 704/200, 704/226, 704/227, 704/228, 704/201
• US Class Current: 704/226
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 19/012 Comfort noise or silence coding

Abstract

A method is provided for generating comfort noise in a packetized voice communication system having a transmitter and a receiver. The receiver is provided with a buffer for storing voice packets. The buffer is chosen to be of a predetermine size such that, upon halting the transmitter as a result of silence detection, the buffer is filled with actual silence samples from the transmitter. A comparator compares an output TDM sample pointer with a start of silence pointer of the buffer. In the event that the pointers are the same, silence is flagged and a random number generator loads numbers into the TDM sample pointer for outputting a random sequence of the silence packets to the telephone receiver.

Claims

1. A method of providing comfort noise in a packetized voice communication system having a transmitter and a receiver, said transmitter being adapted to halt transmission of packets of voice samples after a predetermined time period following detection of silence, and said receiver having a first pointer to a first address in a buffer into which an incoming one of said packets of voice samples is stored and a second pointer to a second address in said buffer from which an outgoing one of said packets of voice samples is retrieved, said buffer being of a size to store a plurality of said packets of voice samples representing a speech duration which is less than said predetermined time period such that said buffer is full of noise samples after said transmitter has been halted, said method comprising the steps of:

continuously comparing said second pointer to said first pointer and, in the event said second address is equal to said first address, then loading said second pointer with a random number and retrieving and outputting from said second address pointed to by said second pointer said outgoing one of said packets of voice samples.

2. A comfort noise generator for use in a packetized voice communication system having a transmitter and a receiver, said transmitter being adapted to halt transmission of packets of voice samples after a predetermined time period following detection of silence, said receiver having a first pointer to a first address in a buffer into which a first sample of an incoming one of said packets of voice samples is stored, successive samples of said incoming one of said packets of voice samples being stored in successive addresses following said first address, said receiver having a second pointer to a second address in said buffer from which a first sample of an outgoing one of said packets of voice samples is retrieved, successive samples of said outgoing one of said packets of voice samples being retrieved from successive addresses following said second address, said buffer being of a size to store a plurality of said packets of voice samples representing a speech duration which is less than said predetermined time period such that said buffer is full of noise samples after said transmitter has been halted, said comfort noise generator comprising:

a control block for continuously comparing said second pointer to said first pointer; and

a random number generator for loading said second pointer with a random number in the event said second address is equal to said first address, whereby said outgoing one of said packets of voice samples pointed to by said second pointer is retrieved and output.

3. The comfort noise generator of claim 2, wherein said control block further comprises a comparator for comparing said second pointer to said first pointer, a counter for incrementing said first pointer and said second pointer for storing and retrieving, respectively, successive ones of said samples of each packet, and a state machine for controlling operation of said second pointer and said random number generator.

4. The comfort noise generator of claim 3, wherein said control block and random number generator are implemented via verilog code as follows: