4. The method recited in claim 3 , wherein the speech coder adapts a rate associated with digitizing and compressing the input speech signal to minimize the available bandwidth used to transmit the digitized input speech signal to the speech recognition engine.
3. The method recited in claim 1 , wherein the speech coder uses the variable rate sampling to maximize a fidelity associated with the digitized input speech signal and minimize the available bandwidth used to transmit the digitized input speech signal to the speech recognition engine.