by applying a noise attenuation factor to the echo canceled signal or to an average of that signal the processor maintains the average signal across periods of speech and non speech during far end modes of operation where only incoming audio from the far end is active the processor substitutes the average signal for the echo canceled signal such that a far end listener receives the natural sounding average signal without receiving the objectionable residual echo that may be in the echo canceled signal application_number US 27209502 A description fig1 illustrates an exemplary communications system 10 in which the echo suppression techniques of the present invention may be advantageously used the communications system 10 includes a communications tower 22 base station 24 mobile switching center 20 msc and a transmission network such as the public switched telephone network pstn 26 a conventional near end mobile terminal 40 communicates with a far end conventional telephone handset 30 via communications system 10 the mobile terminal 40 receives and encodes a voice input from microphone 42 and transmits the voice signal to the msc 20 via tower 22 and associated base station 24 msc 20 further processes and transmits the received signals to a far end conventional telephone handset 30 via pstn 26 the telephone handset 30 outputs a facsimile of the mobile terminal user 39 s voice based on these received signals conversely the telephone handset 30 conveys voice input.