Automatic volume control of a voice signal provided to a captioning communication service

A captioning communication system, comprising:

• a near-end communication device including:
• a microphone configured to capture a near-end voice signal during a communication session with a far-end communication device;
• communication elements configured to receive a far-end voice signal from the far-end communication device during the communication session;
• a speaker configured to reproduce the far-end voice signal;
• an electronic display configured to display text captions during the communication session;
• and
• a processor operably coupled with the microphone, the communication elements, the speaker, and the electronic display;
• and
• a captioning communication service configured to generate a text transcription of the far-end voice signal during the communication session and transmit the text transcription in real time to the near-end communication device for the text captions to be displayed,
• wherein at least one of the near-end communication device and the captioning communication system is configured to operate:
• a volume control system configured to automatically adjust a volume of an audio stream reproduced by a speaker of the near-end communication device responsive to a volume control command identifying which of the far-end voice signal and the near-end voice signal is active at a given time;
• and
• an echo modifier configured to add distortion to an echo portion of the far-end voice signal when generating the audio stream.