An endpoint device receives a sequence of audio frames. The endpoint device determines for each audio frame a respective importance level among possible importance levels ranging from a low importance level to a high importance level based on content in the audio frame indicative of the respective importance level. The endpoint device associates each audio frame with the respective importance level, to produce different subsets of audio frames associated with respective ones of different importance levels. The endpoint device, for each subset of audio frames, applies forward error correction to a fraction of audio frames in the subset of audio frames, wherein the fraction increases as the importance level of the audio frames in the subset increases, and does not apply forward error correction to remaining audio frames in the subset.