Patent ID: 6947412

Claim:
A method of improving sound playback of digitized speech signals transmitted to a telecommunications terminal at the beginning of a telephone call set up over a communications network where the signals are transmitted in the form of packets in the event said call is set up from a sending telecommunications terminal comprising voice activity detection means for transmitting only those digitized sound signal packets that contain speech signals, said digitized sound signal packets that contain speech signals are taken from a set of sound signal packets that are available for being transmitted after the sound has been digitized and encoded in the sending terminal, the method comprising transmitting sound signal packets from the digitizing and encoding means without taking account of the presence or absence of speech signals in the processed sound signals during an initial stage of call optimization, wherein the initial telephone call optimization stage during which digitized sound signal packets are transmitted from a sending terminal without taking account of the presence or absence of speech signals in the processed signals is of a duration that is selected in such a manner as to enable a receiving terminal to receive a sufficient number of digitized sound signal packets relating to the call to enable the size of a receive buffer for digitized sound signal packets to be determined on the basis of a statistical evaluation of the delays observed on the received packets.