What is Echo Cancellation and Why is it Critical?

The article discusses the importance of software for echo cancellation in enhancing real-time communication quality. Echoes can significantly degrade call quality and increase bandwidth usage due to additional sound information. Two key methods exist for handling echo - echo cancellation and echo suppression. Echo cancellers estimate the echo path from the transmitting end to the receiving end, while echo suppressors mitigate and eliminate echo during calls. The article also provides natural ways of minimizing echoes such as using microphones with narrow pickup direction, reducing microphone volume, investing in acoustic foam or switching to noise-canceling headphones. Agora's RTC SDK offers automatic echo cancellation for high-quality calls and supports advanced features like AI noise suppression and Bose PinPoint noise filtering.