An A-law algorithm is a standard companding algorithm, used in European 8-bit PCM digital communications systems to optimize, i.e. modify, the dynamic range of an analog signal for digitizing. It is one of two versions of the G.711 standard from ITU-T, the other version being the similar µ-law, used in North America and Japan. An A-law algorithm is a standard companding algorithm, used in European 8-bit PCM digital communications systems to optimize, i.e. modify, the dynamic range of an analog signal for digitizing. It is one of two versions of the G.711 standard from ITU-T, the other version being the similar µ-law, used in North America and Japan. For a given input x, the equation for A-law encoding is as follows, where A is the compression parameter. In Europe, A = 87.6 {displaystyle A=87.6} .