Conference circuits and methods of operating them

Abstract From the Canadian patent

Abstract of the Disclosure, A conference circuit has a plurality of ports for a corresponding plurality of conferees. Associated with the ports is a control circuit which determines whether a conferee is active i.e. talking, or dormant, i.e. listening. The circuit applies gain to the "active" signals and attenuates the "dormant" signals. When a listener starts to talk, the circuit switches his port to the "active" mode. Difficulties arise in determining when a listener becomes active, due to noise and echo with the speech signal. They are mitigated by comparing the signal from the port with an echo signal estimate derived from the echo return loss for the transmission path associated with …