Impairments Due to Non-ideal 2-wire / 4-wire Conversion : Echoes and

Singing
 When using a hybrid circuit for 2-wire / 4-wire conversion, the impedance of the
balancing network should match the impedance of the subscriber line.
 If there is a difference between these impedance, part of the 4-wire incoming signal
power is reflected back into the out going 4-wire port. The greater the impedance
mismatch, the larger the reflection or echo is.
 It is impossible to accurately predict the subscriber line impedance, since that
varies widely from line to line. The subscriber line impedance is affected by the
length of the subscriber loop, the type of cable used, ambient conditions, loading
effects and many other variables.

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  A useful quantity describing the level of signal reflection in the 4-
wire part of the hybrid is the balance return loss, A, in dB.
According to definition,
A = 20 log (Zl  Zb) / (Zl - Zb) dB
where Zl and Zb are the line and balance network impedance, respectively.
 If the network perfectly balances the line, then Zl = Zb , and the
return loss would be infinite.
Return loss may also be expressed in terms of reflection coefficient  , and
A = 20 log (1/) dB
where the reflection coefficient is equal to the ratio of reflected signal and
incident signal.
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Seen from the 4-wire side,
 the reflected signal undergoes an additional attenuation of two times
power splitting loss (2 times 3 dB in theory) because of the double-
crossing of the hybrid.
The total attenuation of the 4-wire signal reflected through the hybrid, Ar, is
thus,
Ar = A  + 6 dB
In practice,
 Ar should be around 15 dB (as per ITU-T G.122 and G.131) in order
to keep echoes at a tolerable level.

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 4'

2 "4-w ire" side

"2-w ire" side

4

"2-w ire" input 2

 3dB
4' "4-w ire" output
(a)

4 "4-w ire" input

"2-w ire" output 2

(b)
A Ar

4' signal redected form

the "4-w ire" side

4
Reflection in a hybrid circuit
Usually, echoes can be classified into two categories: talker echo and listener echo.

LOOP TCT LOSS INTERTOLL LOSS TCT LOSS LOOP

LOSS LOSS

H N N H

PRIMARY SIGNAL PATH

TALKER ECO PATH

LISTENER ECO PATH

Echo paths in a long distance telephone connection, showing

talker echo and listener echo

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 Talker Echo is a problem for most people only when the round-trip
echo time is greater than about 50 ms. Below 50 ms most talkers do not
notice the echo, but above this value the echo annoys the talker and is
very discomforting.

 Listener Echo is produced from some of the energy reflected back

from the talker side to the listener, so that the listener hears a reduced
and delayed listener echo in addition to the original louder voice. The
effect of listener echo is different from the talker echo; because of the
lower amplitude it is often just an annoyance to the listener. Both types
of echo can cause error in data transmission, not voice.

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 7
Level diagram of a “2-wire” to “4-wire” to ‘2-wire” link
  The key factor in echo is the signal travel time, which is determined
by the travel distance.
 For talker echo, the distance is twice the distance between ends of
the link, while for listener echo it is three times that amount.

Echo Time = (distance / propagation velocity) x [2(for talker echo) or

3(for listener echo)]

In satellite communication, the one-way signal can travel about 45,000

miles, thus
 the talker echo distance is about 90,000 miles (talker echo time is
thus around 500 ms);
 the listener echo distance is about 135,000 miles, and consequently,
8
the listener echo time is around 750 ms.
The effect of an echo is more undesirable the lower its attenuation with
respects to the principal signal and the longer its delay.
The attenuation Ae1 of the talker echo from the figure is
Ae1 = At - G4 + Ar - G4 + At
= Ar + 2At - 2G4 dB
where Ar represents transhybrid attenuation, At represents crossing
attenuation and G4 is the residual gain, i.e. the value by which the sum of
the distributed gain exceeds the sum of the attenuation of the line sections.
The listener echo attenuation Ae2 with respect to the principal listener
signal is given as
Ae2 = A + At - G4 + Ar - G4 + At
= 2Ar - 2G4
= Ae1 + A dB
where Ar = A + 2At 9
  In speech transmission, low echo levels are usually not a problem, as long as the
delay between the signal and its echo is short.
 Instabilities in the network may arise, if the “feedback” within the 4-wire system,
resulting from multiple echoes at both ends of the 4-wire link, becomes
excessive.
 In the worst case, sustained oscillations may appear within a voice channel. If
this voice channel is transmitted through a carrier system, not only does such
oscillation make this channel unusable, but all the other voice channels of the
carrier system will suffer too, due to eventual saturation of the amplifiers in the
4-wire system. This phenomenon, called singing, should be avoided at all costs.
The subjective annoyance of echoes increases with both delay and level. In long-
distance transmission, especially satellite transmission, even low echo levels are
disturbing to the listener, due to the long delay involved. If the delay is larger
than 50 ms (ITU-T G.122 / G.131), echo suppression or echo cancellation circuits
should be used at the 4-wire to 2-wire interfaces.
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The echo suppression principle is based on the fact that in most cases, two
people do not talk at the same time during telephone conversation. The
operation of echo suppresser:
When a caller from west begins to speak, the speech detector for west-east
direction is activated and it causes the logic control circuit to disable the
amplifier for the east-west direction. Thus the returned echo is effectively
suppressed by approximately 60 dB. Similarly, when a caller from the east
begins to talk, the speech detector for east-west direction becomes activated,
thus causing the logic controller to disable the west-east amplifier. What
happens when both the party talks simultaneously? Obviously, echo suppressers
in both the directions are activated and nobody hears anything. Thus, long-
distance transmission system using this type of echo suppressers virtually
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becomes half-duplex.
 Echo suppressor

Amplifire/echo
suppressor

Enable

Speech
detector
and logic
West East
control
circuit

Enable

Amplifire/echo
suppressor

The echo suppressor 12

To achieve full-duplex operation with voice, echo cancellers are used.
 This device uses signal subtraction method and uses circuitry that
compensates for the echo by negating it.
 The original talker signal is fed into a delay line to generate a
simulated echo, which is then electronically subtracted from the
signal plus real echo using an op amp configuration.
 When the electronically generated delay is equal to the signal delay
due to travel distance, the echo effect is canceled out. The key to the
successful implementation of this circuit is that the delay time must
be adjusted for the differing delays of each connection path. Also the
amplitude of the delayed signal must be equal to the amplitude of the
echoed signal, so as to exactly cancel it, when subtracted. 13
Echo suppression using signal subtraction method

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 These adjustments of time delay and amplitude are made by an
adaptive circuit that electronically adjusts the delay to minimize the
echo effect.
 The echo cancellation circuitry cannot “set and forget” the subtracted
gain setting; it must continuously adjust it as the echoed signal strength
varies during a call.
 In adaptive echo cancellers an adaptive model is generated, stored in
memory and regularly updated, taking into account the received signal
form and the echo return loss.
 This synthetic echo is then subtracted from the outgoing signal, thereby
canceling the physical echo and leaving a clean outgoing signal.

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 ECHO CANCELLER: Dynamically cancels the echo.

Adaptive
four-w ire Filter H
error
circuit tw o-w ire
circuit
synthitic
echo

Echo cancellation

The DSP echo cancellation scheme uses an updated version of the

subracter method. The signals with echo are converted to digital form for
processing by complex algorithms that can separate out the desired signal
from the echo. 16