Patent ID: 6842526

Claim:
A process for determining an estimated value for the noise level n of a background noise which is superimposed on an acoustic signal, transmitted over a telecommunications (=TC) system, comprising the steps of: adopting a predeterminable initialisation value n0 as an estimated value n(x) for a current noise level n; defining as a value n1(x) the estimated value n(x) of the noise level n for an input signal x(k), sampled at times k with a sampling frequency fs=1/T, n1(x) being determined by means of the minimum value of the quantity of all the successive maximum values of the input signal x(k) in each case found within a short time interval with a time length ts≧1 ms, adopting the value n1(x) as estimated value n(x) for the current noise level n when dynamic variations of the input signal x(k) undershoot a predeterminable threshold value ∈; and adopting unchanged the estimated value n(x) determined in the preceding step as new estimated value n(x) for the current noise level n when the dynamic variations of the input signal x(k) exceed a predeterminable threshold value ∈.