Speech packet communication system and method

A speech packet communication system for making speech communication among a plurality of speech terminals and including a communication network. The communication network includes a transmission path and a plurality of intermediate switching nodes, each controlling the traffic of a plurality of speech packets received from the transmission path or other intermediate switching nodes in accordance with priority indicators contained in the respective packets. Each speech terminal converts the input speech signal to packets, transmits the packets onto the transmission path or decodes speech packets received from the transmission path. Particularly, when the terminal converts the input speech signal to packets, it uses a special purpose function of determining a priority indicator assigned to the packet to greatly improve the quality of a reproduced speech at a receiving end.