the digital subtractor 102 may receive the echo estimate and subtract the echo estimate from the near end signal 108 to create the residual signal 120 the comfort noise generator 106 may track the power levels of the near end signal 108 the far end signal 112 and the residual signal 120 u201c the power levels u201d and create an output signal 110 the comfort noise generator 106 may use this information to determine whether to create a comfort noise signal and use this as the output signal the comfort noise generator 106 may also use this information to attenuate the residual signal and use the residual signal as the output signal the comfort noise generator 106 may also use this information to decide to use the residual signal itself as the output signal the decision as to whether to output the comfort noise signal an attenuated residual signal or the residual signal may be made based upon a variety of factors in one particularly convenient embodiment the decision may be based upon comparing the power ratios of the power levels to predetermined thresholds and determining whether these ratios are less than predetermined thresholds this comparison process may determine whether the near end and far end signals are noise or speech signals referring now to fig2 a comfort noise generator 200 includes a lpc analysis module 202 a background power tracking module 204 a clipping circuit.