19. The apparatus of claim 12 further comprising an echo suppressor which suppresses said echo detected in said target speech signal by the echo detector.
19. The apparatus of claim 12 further comprising an echo suppressor which suppresses said echo detected in said target speech signal by the echo detector. 20. The apparatus of claim 19 wherein the speech coders comprise multi-rate coders which generate full rate-packets, half-rate packets, and eighth-rate packets, wherein the eight-rate packets represent background noise information, and wherein the echo suppressor suppresses said echo detected in said target speech signal by the echo detector by replacing one or more full-rate or half-rate target packets with one or more eighth-rate packets.