Google is about to impose the planned meeting duration to 60 minutes for Google Meet customers under the free tier. As announced in April, Google said it would limit meetings to 60 minutes starting September 30th.
The generous window of unlimited call time was announced in April, as Google tried to catch up on the fast rise of Zoom. Starting September 30th, free Google Meet users will have to limit their conference calls to just an hour.
Besides, access to some advanced by G Suite and G Suite for Education customers is also going away the same day.
Before that deadline, G Suite and G Suite for Education customers can host meetings with up to 250 participants, with up to 100,000 live streamers within a single domain and the ability to save meeting recordings to Zoom. Typically, all of these are under the enterprise tier of G Suite, which costs $25 per user per month.
In response to The Verge, a Google spokesperson said, “We don’t have anything to communicate regarding changes to the promo and advanced features expiring. If this changes, we’ll be sure to let you know.”
Google has extended its policy that lets free Meet users conduct unlimited calls, up to 24 hours.
In a blog post, Google Meet’s group product manager, Samir Pradhan, wrote, “As a sign of our commitment, today we’re continuing unlimited Meet calls (up to 24 hours) in the free version through March 31, 2021 for Gmail accounts.”
Google has been pushing limits with video conferencing platform Meet, in an aim to catch up on Zoom. Since the start of the year, Google has continuously improved the product with new features now and then. The same has been the case for Google Duo.
Update: Google won’t limit Meet calls till March 2021.
