Starting from this summer, VK (Vkontakte) users will be gather up to 2,048 people in group calls — “an unprecedented number for a social network,” according to Mail.ru Group, the owner of VK.
The new feature was announced on May 17 by VK Technical Director Alexander Tobol at the Highload++ conference. “For most services, the number of call participants is limited by the capabilities of browsers and smartphones, internet accessibility and available technical solutions,” he explained.
“To overcome the limit, we completely reevaluated the architecture or our service and implemented numerous non-standard solutions for video and audio processing and transmission. All of this allowed us to ‘break through the ceiling,” he said.
The VK group call service is and will remain available for free with no time limitation. Users can share their screens, record calls, use convenient mute and noise suppression functionalities. Any device may be used to access calls, with no VK account required.
These advantages will remain after the limit in number of participants — currently at 128 — will be brought to 2,048.
“Such a number of call participants provides organizers of entertainment and educational events with new opportunities, allowing them to effortlessly bring people together for online concerts, educational forums or IT conferences. Holding massive online meetings on the VK Calls platform is available not only to organizations with large numbers of resources but to any user that wants to share content with an audience,” stated Mail.ru Group.
