Skype Doubles Group Call Limit to 50, Overtakes FaceTime's Max of 32

Skype has increased the number of users that can be on the same audio or video group call to 50, up from the previous maximum of 25.

The bump up to 50 means bigger team chats and larger conference calls with speakers can take place, while full classes of students can participate in group calls.

The change also means Microsoft's Skype now beats Apple's FaceTime for the number of users that take part in a group call. FaceTime supports a maximum of 32 people.

In addition, Microsoft has made some changes to how larger Skype group calls start. Users now receive a notification to replace the default ringing sound, which is meant to allow every member of a group to receive a quick ping to join the call in a more unobtrusive way.

The audio and video buttons remain available to use in larger groups, so users can still mute their microphones or turn on/off their webcam.

Large group calling is available on the latest version of Skype for desktop and mobile.

Tag: Skype

Top Rated Comments

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W2u7Yw4HaD

11 months ago

Spend a lot of my day in meetings, most people don't even bother with a video being turned on. I fail to see how useful 32 people are at the same time.. let alone 50...

Rating: 20 Votes

Pepe4life

11 months ago

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Video calling with 50 people? Sounds like a mess to me.

Rating: 10 Votes

Farsider

11 months ago

I work in a massive Enterprise and we use Zoom too. We are all geographically distributed so face to face isn't possible.

We have embedded a culture of ‘video on by default’ and the change in professional relationship building has been staggering. Sure it was a little uncomfortable for most at first but now its the norm. It’s just so much more personable than an audio bridge or chat window.

We have held 50-100 person Zoom video calls. It’s easy to manage, performance is quite remarkable considering what is actually happening and it just works really well. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.

Based on our experience, it’s easy to see why Skype have done this. They need to compete.

Rating: 10 Votes

squizzler

11 months ago

Utterly useless feature.

Rating: 7 Votes

Nebulance

11 months ago

We use Zoom at my work; it can handle at least 40, not sure if there’s a cap to it. Once a week we have a meeting that can get that large.

What really matters is how stable it is, and it performs quite well — very little problems, if any. Screen sharing works great, which is good because there’s always someone showing slides.

Rating: 5 Votes

Relentless Power

11 months ago

50 people Just Seems Way too convoluted and I’m not sure how you could even have a practical meeting/discussion with that many people involved. I’m curious how many companies/organizations, etc. would even be want to take advantage of 50 participants.

Rating: 5 Votes

Relentless Power

11 months ago

What really matters is how stable it is, and it performs quite well — very little problems, if any. Screen sharing works great, which is good because there’s always someone showing slides.

These are valid points. Maybe it’s not about the actual amount of people participating, but the actual stability/fluidity using a feature like this. If it’s cumbersome to use, then no one will ever use it. I can’t say really anything negative about a feature like this, because I have not experienced it, it just seems like it would be unintuitive with that many people involved.

Rating: 2 Votes

unplugme71

11 months ago

Microsoft did upped the game.

10 years in the future, we’d look back to this forum and laugh how 50 is nothing compared to ... say maybe 1,000 users?

I got the entire world on video right now. Beat that, Skype

Rating: 1 Votes

e-coli

11 months ago

Microsoft products are complete garbage developed by a company paralyzed by its own compartmentalizations and operating in a culture of fear. It shows in every product they make, with the sole exception of Xbox.

I had a family member with an Android phone (the rest of the family has iPhones) and while my grandmother was on her death bed, we all took a moment to FaceTime with her. It meant SO much, and those were beautiful and heartbreaking moments. My family member with an Android, her son, couldn’t get Skype to work and never got a chance to see her before she was gone.

I would never allow my life to rely on a Microsoft product. Life’s too short.

Rating: 1 Votes

ignatius345

11 months ago

At jobs I've had, any conference call that big is usually more of a "few to many" presentation or announcement, pretty analogous to having a few people on a stage talking about something and then selectively taking questions. I can't imagine video being particularly useful unless, I guess, there's some visual thing being referred to by the presenters.
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I run a really small nonprofit and have quarterly board meetings. Zoom is free for 40 minutes which is enough time for us, even for chit chat at the end. I like their invite tools and the ability to call in when one member is located in a place that doesn’t have good enough cell signal or wifi available (Oregon coast). Has worked for us for many years now. Haven’t tried the slide/share feature.

That 40 minute limit sounds like a godsend, actually. I wish every meeting I ever had was limited to 40 minutes :)

Rating: 1 Votes

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