[asterisk-users] Background Noise Elimination

[Norman Franke]

Greetings!

We have a somewhat noisy background in our call center, and I'd like  
to reduce this. Obviously, we could plaster the walls with sound  
absorbing material, but is there anything we can do in software  
either using any algorithms for our open source-based SIP library or  
inside Asterisk itself? Related to this, anyone have a good source  
for good panels?

We are using Plantronics noise canceling headsets, which don't really  
seem to work all that well. Our ancient system handled noise much  
better, but I suspect that was partly due to the Dialogic ADPCM  
algorithm used that just reduced the intelligibility of lower volume  
noises in general. We are using PCMU direct from the agent's mic to  
through Asterisk to PRIs, so we don't "suffer" from compression  
artifacts. The down side, is that you can make out even very quiet  
conversations in the background (like 3 agents to one side.)

How have people handled this? I'm experimenting with a noise gate  
that will lower the volume when the agent isn't talking, but that  
won't help when the agent is talking.

Norman Franke
ASD, Inc.

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