Google to restrict free meetings on Google Meet to sixty minutes

In the current age of a pandemic, online meetings have become essential for both official and academic purposes. Google Meet is such a platform to host meetings. Till now, Google offered users to host long meets for free. However, that is all set to change starting September 30.

The tech giants have now announced that it would restrict free meeting durations to sixty minutes. The latest announcement does not come as a surprise. Google had previously mentioned the restrictions and stated the deadline. So the company is just keeping true to its previous statements.

Google Meet is a video conferencing app that rose to prominence during the pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns. Initially, Google intended to impose restrictions; however the ongoing circumstances made them adopt a lenient approach. But from now onwards, users will have to subscribe to various plans to avail better conference durations. For this purpose, Google is offering three subscription tiers for Google Meet- Basic, Business and Enterprise.

The new plans from Google undoubtedly pose problems for hundreds and thousands of users. Yet, it’s not all bad. The company has informed that users can create new conference links after the expiry of sixty minutes, allowing them to continue their meeting. Business tier users, however, can hold meetings with a hundred participants without any time limits. FYI, Google has priced the tiers at INR 125 for Basic, INR 672 for Business and INR 1650 for Enterprise.

Google is also removing some other advanced features that it used to offer for free. Previously, G Suite and G Suite for Education, features that allowed for 250 participants and over a hundred thousand live streamers, could be accessed for free users. Now, only Enterprise tier subscribers will be able to avail these features.

A few weeks ago, Google unveiled a new feature for its video conferencing service. Google Meet can now include 49 people at once. Furthermore, users can now adjust the tiles on display. Users can enable the new mode in Tiled and Auto layouts. However, mobile phone users can not use the new feature yet, as it is only available on the web version.