Patent ID: 6968064

Claim:
An apparatus for canceling far endpoint echo signals in audio signals transmitted from a near endpoint to a far endpoint, the apparatus comprising: a near endpoint analysis filter bank operable to divide a near endpoint signal into a plurality of near endpoint subband signals, wherein the near endpoint analysis filter bank estimates power in the plurality of near endpoint subband signals; a far endpoint analysis filter bank operable to divide a far endpoint signal into a plurality of far endpoint subband signals, wherein the far endpoint analysis filter bank estimates power in the plurality of far endpoint subband signals; a background signal power estimator operable to estimate a background noise; and logic for determining whether the estimated power in the plurality of far and near endpoint subband signals exceeds the background noise by a predefined threshold; wherein if the estimated power in the plurality of far and near endpoint subband signals exceeds the background noise by the predefined threshold, then a counter is set to allow a speech activity indicator to hangover for a period of time.