Tech giant Google has backtracked from its earlier decision to limit video calls on its Google Meet platform to 60 minutes for its free users from September 30 and has extended the status quo to another year.
Free users of the solution can continue to enjoy extended calls up to 24 hours till March 31, 2021, now.
In April, Google had announced that any Google user could create free meetings with up to 100 people with no time limit until September 30 in the pandemic times.
Earlier this month, it had introduced a slew of new features that allowed users to see as much as 49 people at the same time (including themselves) during a Google Meet call. Additional features like layout customizations and background blur were also introduced in the release.
Samir Pradhan, Google’s Group Product Manager for Meet shared that “As we look ahead to a holiday season with less travel and important milestones like family reunions, PTA meetings and weddings hosted over the video, we want to continue helping those who rely on Meet to stay in touch over the coming months.”
However, the firm clarified that access to advanced features which it had allowed to G Suite and G Suite for Education customers will longer be there.
Features such as meetings with 250 participants, live-streams of up to 100,000 people within a single domain and possible Google Drive backups of meetings will now be reserved to customers on the “enterprise” tier of G Suite which costs $25 per user per month.
