UAE telco Etisalat extends CloudTalk Meeting to now allow up to 50 participants

On Saturday, UAE telecom operator Etisalat announced that it was expanding its CloudTalk Meeting app to now allow up to 50 participants to simultaneously join virtual meetings, reported official news agency WAM.

In addition to increasing the number of users per session, the platform will now also allow for a moderator to manage the meetings. This feature is in addition to what the platform already offers which includes HD quality video and voice conferences, instant messaging, group chats, to draw schemas and use a whiteboard.

In January, Etisalat launched its CloudTalk Meeting in partnership with US company Ribbon Communications, “to provide customers with a secure, scalable, and cloud-native business communication and collaboration solution”, as an alternative to Skype.

CloudTalk Meeting can be downloaded via Google Play or the App Store, and can be accessed from computers, tablets and smartphones, or even by dialing in via a toll-free number.

On March 9, in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis, as private and government companies began increasingly offering work-from-home solutions for its employees, Etisalat decided to offer organisations with an Etisalat Business account a three months free trial of their collaboration platform in order to allow a smoother transition for companies in the UAE towards a remote working model.

Commenting on the recent upgrade to the number of users permitted to join virtual meeting on the platform, Etisalat’s group chief business officer, Salvador Anglada, said, ” CloudTalk Meeting will enable organisations to remotely work, maintain business continuity, collaborate, and ensure smooth functioning of their businesses. With a robust backend capability that is hosted in the country, the reliable solution guarantees that businesses and all our customers have a seamless experience. The increased capacity of users per session will facilitate more team members, customers, and remote work forces to use the secure platform to meet all their business requirements.”

On March 19, the UAE’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) announced that the country’s two telecom operators, Etisalat and du, would provide free internet data via mobile phones to families with no home internet facilities in order to facilitate access to distance learning programmes initiated as a result of nation-wide closure of educational institutions in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Read: UAE’s TRA to offer free mobile data to help students with no home internet

Last week, the TRA also announced that it would make available in the country Microsoft Skype for Business and Google Hangouts across all fixed line networks, as well as Microsoft Times, Zoom and Blackboard across all its networks “exceptionally and until further notice” as a means to support businesses who were operating remotely.

Read: Skype for Business, Google Hangouts, other applications now available in the UAE