Google Meet is ultimately imposing a time limit on group video chats for cost-free customers

Google Meet: Google is ultimately imposing its time limit on group Meet calls for cost-free customers. In its updated suggestions for Google Meet, the tech giant has mentioned that cost-free Gmail customers would only be capable to hold group video calls getting 3 participants or more for a maximum of 60 minutes. On the other hand, one-to-one calls would continue to have a maximum capacity of 24 hours for cost-free customers. With this, Google’s initiative to permit cost-free customers to hold group chats for up to 24 hours for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic appears to have come to an finish.

When the search engine giant made its video conferencing answer accessible to all Gmail customers in April last year, it had mentioned that it would impose a maximum time limit of 60 minutes for cost-free customers in September 2020, but taking into consideration the reality that coronavirus pandemic was nevertheless raging, it extended the deadline 1st to March 2021, and then to June 2021. Now, even though, the updated suggestions have made it clear that any other extension is unlikely, most likely due to the reality that the vaccination drive is gathering pace all more than the world and several offices have resumed offline work culture.

Also study | Rules at Work: Learning to embrace a post-Covid digital culture

Google has mentioned that when the video contact has been operating for 55 minutes, all customers would get a notification telling them that the contact was about to finish. In case the host wishes to extend the contact beyond 60 minutes, they would need to have to upgrade their Google account, otherwise the contact would terminate at 60 minutes.

However, it is not however clear if when the 60-minute limit is reached, the Meet hyperlink itself would be disabled, forcing the user to make a new one, or if rejoining the similar hyperlink would support. Reports, even though, indicate that it would probably be the former, which signifies that although producing a new hyperlink is not specifically tough, it would bring about some annoyance amongst the customers, in particular if their private group conversations are interrupted mid-way.

Google has, having said that, lately announced a new Google Workspace Individual tier which would permit customers to upgrade their accounts and host a group video contact for up to 24 hours. The upgrade has been announced in a handful of nations for now, and it has been priced at $9.99 or about Rs 745 a month in the US.

In any case, a cost-free user is no longer going to be capable to host group video calls on Google Meet for more than 60 minutes at a stretch now, it appears.

Originally appeared on: TheSpuzz