For example, suppose my code can determine that upstream bandwidth is unusually limited. And suppose I'm using a fully-connected mesh topology combined with a UDP-like protocol for voice chat. Is there an established way to reduce the risk of packet loss so that the voice playback will either be solid or muted, but not jittery or choppy? This must be a solved problem in the VoIP world, but I'm not sure where to look.
EDIT: To clarify my abuse of the term jitter: I mean, if two UDP voice packets arrive out of order, the audio would sound jittery in a colloquial sense (i.e. I mean packet jitter, not audio signal displacement). The choppy sound I'm referring to is related, where a UDP packet is lost instead of arriving late and causes a gap or jump in the audio.
When I refer to muting the playback, I don't mean as a function of source input to avoid background noise. I mean on the receiving end of the conversation, if there's high packet loss, just stop playback instead of playing choppy audio.