Abstract This paper gives an improved MBELP speech coding algorithm at 2.4kb/s.Compared with conventional MBELP algorithm,this algorithm has some improvements on pitch estimation and unvoice/voice decision.The synthetical speech of vocoder based on this algorithm is better than that based on conventional one.After a brief introduction,the improved MBELP algorithm is discussed in detail.And the results of pitch estimation and U/V decision based on the improved MBELP are compared with those based on conventional MBELP.