An apparatus and method for disabling an echo canceller in a communication channel is external to the echo canceller. The average power of the received signal is compared to the average power of the transmitted signal and if the received signal is more than 26 dB below the transmitted signal, then it is determined that echo cancellation is not required. If the received signal is less than 6 dB below the transmitted signal, then there is double talk present and a determination can not be made. The invention provides a low cost system for controlling echo cancellers and can continue to monitor echo during a call. The invention is well suited to implementation on a field programmable gate array (FPGA) or application specific integrated circuit (ASIC).