The paper briefly describes several techniques for handling variability introduced by unknown communication channels which are under development in our laboratory. Four techniques: 1) long-term speech analysis for alleviating harmful effects of reverberation, 2) data-driven design of RASTA-like filters for alleviating harmful effects of linear distortions, 3) multi-band ASR for alleviating harmful effects of frequency-selective noises, and 4) a simple adaptation technique for alleviating harmful effects of steady or slowly changing noise, are discussed.