A method to reduce the amount of bandwidth used in the transmission of digitized voice packets is described. The method is used to reduce the number of transmitted packets by suspending transmission during periods of silence or when only noise is present. The system determines if a background noise update is warranted based on human auditory perception factors instead of an artificial limiter on excessive silence insertion descriptor packets. The system searches for characteristics in the perceptual changes of background noise instead of analyzing speech for improved audio compression. The invention weighs factors affecting the perception of sound including frequency masking, temporal masking, loudness perception based on tone, and auditory perception differential based on tone.