DIFFERENTIATION OF ERROR CONDITIONS IN DIGITAL VOICE COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS

• Main Authors: ZIOLKO, ERIC, FERDINAND, PAPPAS, SCOTT, JAMES, WEISS, DAVID, LEE
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; French; German
• Published: 11.09.2002
• Edition: 7
• Subjects: ACOUSTICS; ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE; ELECTRICITY; MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; PHYSICS; SPEECH ANALYSIS OR SYNTHESIS; SPEECH OR AUDIO CODING OR DECODING; SPEECH OR VOICE PROCESSING; SPEECH RECOGNITION; TRANSMISSION; TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHICCOMMUNICATION

An apparatus and method for indicating sources of high error conditions, including out-of-range and interference conditions, to a user of a digital voice communication system. When the vocoder (206) of a communication unit (200, 450) silences due to high error conditions, a source of the high error conditions (e.g., out-of-range or interference) is determined based on the signal strength, and a source indicator (218, 220) is generated to inform the user of the source of the high error conditions. In one embodiment, where a repeater (400) is used, sources of high error conditions are detected both inbound to and outbound from the repeater. In an event of high error conditions on the inbound signal path (404), the repeater puts out a distinctive erasure (420, 422, 424) identifying the source. The communication unit (450) detects the erasure and generates a source indicator associated with the erasure. In the event of high error conditions on the outbound signal path, the communication unit determines the source based on the signal strength and generates an appropriate source indicator. By using distinctive source indicators (470, 472, 474, 476), the communication unit thereby informs the user of error conditions on the inbound or outbound path from the repeater.