Patent ID: 7177801

Claim:
A method of speech communication using very low digital data bandwidth, comprising: providing a bi-directional digital telephony link over a digital packet network between a source terminal and a destination terminal, wherein the source terminal for a forward link serves as the destination terminal for a reverse link on the digital telephony link; distinguishing between speech and a pause in the speech communication using an ITU voice activity detection module; providing a comfort noise simulation of background noise for each distinguished pause in the speech communication in time order with the speech; translating said speech into text at the source terminal; communicating said text and said time-ordered simulated comfort noise of each pause in speech across the bi-directional digital telephony link to the destination terminal; determining a status of the telephony link; ending the communicating if the telephony link is terminated; generating a speaker voice profile by training the source terminal to recognize words spoken by a speaker for reproduction of audible speech corresponding to words spoken by the speaker having audible qualities approximating that of the speaker; communicating the voice profile across the telephony link from the source terminal to the destination terminal, wherein the speaker's voice profile contains the information needed to generate the reproduced speech that substantially resembles the sound of the speaker's voice; and translating said text into reproduced speech received at said destination terminal using the speaker's voice profile and reproducing the simulated background noise in the reproduced speech in time order with each pause in the speech at the source terminal at the destination terminal.