1. A method for retransmitting a speech packet, the method comprising: receiving at a speech transmitting device a first negative acknowledgement from a receiving communication device indicative of a corrupted first speech packet transmission; retrieving a first speech packet associated with the first negative acknowledgement; compressing the first speech packet to form a replacement speech packet; encoding a current segment of speech responsive to the first negative acknowledgement to form a current speech packet; combining the current speech packet with the replacement speech packet to form a combined speech packet; and transmitting the combined speech packet.