Enhanced communication bridge
View Patent ↗An enhanced communication bridge includes a context interface that enables the audio bridge to learn information about the type of Voice encoder, device, network connection, location, type of call (business vs. personal), identity and position of the individual, and other information about the context of the communication session itself as well as the context of each person joining the communication session. This context information is used to determine how quality of experience targets for the communication as a whole, as well as how each individual contribution should be uniquely processed to attempt to meet the quality of experience targets. Business factors may influence the decision as to the type of processing to be implemented on each of the signals provided by the participants. Corrective action may also be implemented by the bridge on the client network devices as well in the embodiment. The bridge may be centralized or distributed. A video bridge may be implemented as well.
1. An enhanced communication bridge, comprising:
an audio bridge to implement a communication session hosted by the communication bridge, the audio bridge receiving an associated input audio stream from each communication session participant of a plurality of communication session participants and selecting a subset of the input audio streams to be mixed for presentation to the communication session participants;
a context interface and inference engine to determine a communication context for at least one communication session participant and receive, in conjunction with initiation of the communication session, social context information that identifies a social context associated with the communication session, the social context information comprising calendar information regarding the communication session, and, based on the communication context and the social context, select a set of voice quality enhancement processes from a plurality of voice quality enhancement processes to be applied to the input audio stream associated with the at least one communication session participant; and
an audio enhancer to receive the input audio stream associated with the at least one communication session participant from a decoder and perform audio processing on the input audio stream associated with the at least one communication session participant so that the set of voice quality enhancement processes is applied to the input audio stream associated with the at least one communication session participant before being mixed for presentation to the communication session participants.
2. The enhanced communication bridge of claim 1 , wherein the communication context for the at least one communication session participant includes a network context for the at least one communication session participant.
3. The enhanced communication bridge of claim 2 , wherein the network context is determined, at least in part, via an interface to a network service assurance system.
4. The enhanced communication bridge of claim 1 , wherein the context interface and inference engine further uses quality of experience factors to select the set of voice quality enhancement processes to be applied to the input audio stream associated with the at least one communication session participant.
5. The enhanced communication bridge of claim 4 , wherein the context interface and inference engine further uses business factors to determine whether particular voice quality enhancement processes are too expensive to be applied to the input audio stream associated with the at least one communication session participant.
6. The enhanced communication bridge of claim 4 , wherein the quality of experience factors are selected based on the social context of the communication session.
7. The enhanced communication bridge of claim 1 , wherein the voice quality enhancement processes comprise echo control, gain control, and noise suppression processes.
8. The enhanced communication bridge of claim 7 , wherein the echo control comprises selecting to implement echo cancellation and echo suppression for the input audio stream associated with the at least one communication session participant based on a type of vocoder used to decode the input audio stream associated with the at least one communication session participant.
9. The enhanced communication bridge of claim 8 , wherein the echo cancellation is employed if a waveform-preserving vocoder is in use on the input audio stream associated with the at least one communication session participant.
10. The enhanced communication bridge of claim 8 , wherein the echo suppression is employed if a vocoder with non-linear characteristics is used to decode the input audio stream associated with the at least one communication session participant.
11. The enhanced communication bridge of claim 7 , wherein a first level of noise suppression is implemented on the input audio stream associated with the at least one communication session participant if the input audio stream associated with the at least one communication session participant is decoded with a waveform-preserving vocoder and a second level of noise suppression is implemented on the input audio stream associated with the at least one communication session participant if the input audio stream associated with the at least one communication session participant is decoded with a parametric vocoder, wherein the first level is a greater level of noise suppression than the second level.
12. The enhanced communication bridge of claim 1 , wherein the context interface and inference engine also determines a social context of at least one of the communication session participants and adjusts how the audio enhancer performs audio processing based on the social context of the at least one communication session participant.
13. The enhanced communication bridge of claim 1 , wherein the social context is used to prioritize business-related communication sessions over personal communication sessions.
14. The enhanced communication bridge of claim 1 , wherein the communication bridge is configured to provide instructions to at least one of the communication session participants during the communication sessions.
15. The enhanced communication bridge of claim 14 , wherein one of the instructions is a message that instructs at least one of the communication session participants to move a communication device that is being used to connect the at least one of the communication session participants to the communication session away from a source of noise.
16. The enhanced communication bridge of claim 14 , wherein one of the instructions is a message that instructs one of the communication session participants to activate a mute function on a communication device that is being used to connect the one of the communication session participants to the communication session.
17. The enhanced communication bridge of claim 1 , wherein the communication bridge is configured to control and adjust a gain level, noise reduction, mute, or codec selection of a communication device associated with at least one of the communication session participants based on quality of experience and business factors.
18. The enhanced communication bridge of claim 1 , wherein the communication bridge is configured to detect a type of communication device in use by at least one of the communication session participants and provide the type of communication device information to the context interface and inference engine.
19. The enhanced communication bridge of claim 1 , wherein the communication bridge handles video data as well as audio data.
20. The enhanced communication bridge of claim 1 , wherein the communication bridge maintains a history of processing actions used in connection with previous communication sessions and uses the history to determine initial settings for the communication session.
21. The enhanced communication bridge of claim 1 , wherein the social context information also comprises organizational information identifying a role of the at least one communication session participant in an organization.