Method and apparatus for measuring the delay of the distant echo in an echoancelling arrangement comprising a near echo canceller, a delay line and a distant echo canceller using the steps oftransmitting, by modulation of a carrier, a data sequence having a periodic autocorrelation function with sidelobes of negative or zero value, this sequence having a duration at least equal to the maximum value of the delay to be measured and a number of elements determined by the accuracy desired for measurement of the delay;calculating the correlation function between the data of a next transmitted sequence and the data formed by demodulating the received signal and storing calculated samples of the correlation function in a memory; and determining, among the samples stored, the sample corresponding to the maximum of the correlation function and the rank of that sample.