A method for preventing the loss of information within a speech frame is described. A first speech frame to be encoded is selected. A determination is made as to whether or not a second speech frame is a critical speech frame based on the information within the second speech frame and one or more adjacent speech frames. At least a part of an encoded version of the second speech frame is created according to a selected forward error correction (FEC) mode if the second speech frame is a critical speech frame. The first speech frame and the at least a part of the encoded version of the second speech frame are transmitted.