Use of Voice Activity Detection (VAD) or Comfort Noise Generation (CNG) Blank Times or Spaces

A method, comprising:

• receiving, by a computing system, a plurality of packets, the plurality of packets being exchanged during a voice over Internet Protocol (“VoIP”) communication between two or more user devices, the plurality of packets further comprising one or more second packets containing voice signal data;
• analyzing, by the computing system, the plurality of packets to determine whether the plurality of packets comprises packets containing embedded data in addition to packets containing voice signal data different from the embedded data;
• and
• based on a determination that the plurality of packets comprises one or more first packets containing embedded first data, extracting, by the computing system, the embedded first data.

A enhanced voice activity detection-comfort noise generation (“EVAD/CNG”) system, comprising:

• at least one first processor;
• and
• a first non-transitory computer readable medium communicatively coupled to the at least one first processor, the first non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon computer software comprising a first set of instructions that, when executed by the at least one first processor, causes the EVAD/CNG system to:
• embed first data within a plurality of packets being exchanged during a voice over Internet Protocol (“VoIP”) communication between two or more user devices, the plurality of packets comprising one or more first packets that contain no voice signal data and one or more second packets containing voice signal data, wherein at least one first packet among the one or more first packets comprises one or more CNG packets containing CNG noise data, wherein embedding the first data comprises one of:
• based on a determination that at least one CNG packet is known in terms of which CNG noise data can be replaced without affecting the audible noise perceptible by the users, replacing the known CNG noise data with at least one third packet embedded with the first data;
• or
• based on a determination that the at least one CNG packet is unknown or ambiguous in terms of which CNG noise data can be replaced without affecting the audible noise perceptible by the users, performing the following:
• expanding the at least one CNG packet to produce expanded CNG sound data;
• analyzing the expanded CNG sound data to identify one or more CNG noise data within the at least one CNG packet that can be replaced with the embedded at least one third packet without affecting the audible noise perceptible by the users, and
• replacing at least one CNG noise data among the identified one or more CNG noise data with the at least one third packet embedded with the first data.