A new approach to speech bandwidth reduction

Infinite peak clipping is a simple way to decrease the signal-to-noise ratio for speech transmission. Investigations of this property are reported in terms of channel capacity; the clipping operator reduces it by a factor of 4. The constant-amplitude wave suggests a possible bandwidth reduction by communication of its frequency; signal-to-noise ratios required are about
8n
dB, with
n
the compression factor. The system includes few circuits and appears promising in commercial telephony.