Methods and client devices for transmitting data packets based on audio input from a client device to a communications network in a communication session by receiving audio input on the client device; encoding audio input into audio frames comprising audio data indicative of the audio input; measuring bandwidth utilization of the communications network; removing a portion of the audio data if the bandwidth utilization is above a first pre-determined threshold; grouping the audio frames into data packets; and transmitting the data packets over the communications network. Alternate embodiments for removing portions of the audio data include removing at least one audio frame from each of a selected set of the plurality of data packets. Additional embodiments for removing portions of the audio data include removing a set of least significant bytes from each of a selected set of audio frames.