Thank you for this thread...I have learned a lot!

What do you suggest?

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/undefinedSetup meetings with a meeting password, enable the “waiting room” function, so even if someone DID get the password, they have to be allowed into the zoom room session. It’s a pop-up UI that comes on at the begin fo the meeting for the meeting organizer to confirm. Once everyone is in the meeting, you can just LOCK the meeting, so no one else can come in regardless. And most importantly, don’t post your meeting credentials or master meeting ID URL on twitter and facebook or anywhere online. Problem with schools was they were posting curriculum and courses online (often in a non password enabled site) and people were just scraping the web to find open master ID’s.

If you’re really concerned with needing full E2E encryption and have concern that Zoom admins could gain access to the meeting or the audio stream, just disable the PSTN dial in option and use computer audio only. At that point it’s all encrypted end point to end point. Zoom may STILL have the keys access, but its not in the open over a cell connection or landline trunk.

All these features have been part of zoom for many years they are just not enabled by default to make it very easy to join for any user from any device. Now, I think password and waiting room is enabled by default

Thank you, that is helpful!

On the Zoom front, if you'd rather not install the native client the Chrome App client is pretty decent, doesn't quite do everything the native client does though

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/d...hljndfdfdipjhg

Instead of a mesh solution, I installed an AV1000 powerline ethernet solution throughout my house to hook up my various media players to allow for better wireless bandwidth for four laptops and four phones (two adults working from home and two kids doing remote learning).

Can you tell me more on your setup? Do you have it connected to a corporate phone solution or a monthly subscription to some service, or what?

QUESTION for zoom experts:

Earlier this week, I was in a pre-arranged zoom meeting. Initially, when I tried to enter at the scheduled time, I got a message that the host hadn't yet started the meeting (this continued for at least ten minutes) and then I thought I saw something saying that the host was in a different meeting. Anyway, we eventually started and had about twenty people. Later the meeting suddenly cut off, at forty minutes after the *scheduled* starting time and I wasn't able to find the meeting again. When I explore my free personal zoom account, it says that meetings over three people are limited to forty minutes and offers an option to upgrade to some premium zoom service.

I also have a zoom account from my employer where I've been scheduling meetings for up to about twenty-five people that last over two hours, I seem to be able to start these meetings early, even very early, and to continue past the scheduled ending time without problem. However, without clear rules, I'm not willing to use my work zoom account for things of a more personal nature.

Is my guess right that our meeting host was trying to use a personal account inappropriately and should have had a (presumably paid) business account or at least the enhanced personal account (presumably also paid)? I feel offended that the guy has apparently been doing a series of these zoom meetings and accepting the limitations of using a personal account because he's too cheap to set up some sort of a paid account for a small business. I also had the impression that he was attempting to do a bunch of these zoom "meetings" back-to-back, knowing full well that there would be strict and somewhat unreasonable (IME given what I implicitly paid to participate) time limits. In other words, I suspect that our meeting host is a jerk and might well be violating the terms of his zoom account. Am I being unfair here?

BTW, this was a "marketing" function by a smallish-business. In fact, it was a pre-arranged wine tasting (organized by a wine store for a bunch of people who are strangers to each other) with a successful (even celebrity and cult-iish) winemaker as host; the co-host seemed to be a representative of the winery's distributor for the state.

You're being a little harsh. It's hardly "inappropriate" to use a free Zoom account. You just have to accept the limitations.

In any case, Zoom is not expensive for a paid account as I recall. My company uses Teams so that's what I use all the time.

yes, most likely the "host" only had a free personal account - although I thought that zoom had extended the 40 minute meeting limit for the fully free accounts. Certainly one can update to the 12.99$ a month account and have unlimited length meetings and up to 100 ppl

If they are always using the host ID for that meeting, then yes someone who has been given credentials to it can come in - Early say and enter the same meeting. I usually always create a NEW meeting and not with my primary host ID so each meeting has it's own unique link and only the ppl to whom I have sent it can get in.

You MAY have been waiting, even if the host was in the meeting since zoom has enabled the "waiting room" feature and any new meetings attendees, even with credentials have to be "allowed" into the meeting. The host may have not seen the pop ups on a phone or computer or tablet, and if they don't let the new attendees in then they sit in a waiting room indefinitely (well, maybe not that long) Certainly for someone doing many meetings, getting an actual 12.99$ account can't be too much - and it doesn't have to be a business account just the personal account up from the Basic free one gets one most of the features that the official biz/enterprise account does. I think the later really only adds some things like length or RECORDED meetings and storage and some stuff like that which most personal users probably don't need.

I have a free Zoom account. It's random whether or not your meeting gets a free extension past 40 minutes: you get a pop-up notice with 10 minutes left. I've had about ten calls so far with it, and maybe a third get the free extension. But...everybody knows that if the meeting dies, you can just jump back on the same link and you're in a new 40-minute meeting. Works fine for personal stuff.

Microsoft Teams is our enterprise platform, so I have no experience with the paid Zoom versions. Zoom is occasionally a little glitchy for me...I'd be hesitant to use it professionally unless the enterprise version is a LOT better. I would certainly never put clients/colleagues through the randomness of the 40-minute thing. I've occasionally had Zoom think I was in another meeting, or that some other person hosting was in another meeting. It seems a bit fickle at times.

I've long thought most of these videoconference platforms had too many little drawbacks, but I will admit I've been pleasantly surprised by Teams. Doubly surprising because I've always hated Sharepoint, and I realize that's what's running under the hood with Teams.

I was just on a 3 hour plus Zoom meeting with about 15 people. I�ve been on others with 400+ people. No problems. We have the enterprise version and I think the organizer of the meeting today does too.

With my employer's zoom contract, I can set up meetings for up to 300 people, although I can't imagine that I'd ever need to be able to do so. I've done meetings for about thirty that have lasted almost three hours with no problem. I'm also able to start scheduled meetings as early as I want and to go overtime with no problem. At some point, we switched from Skype to zoom, but of course with work from home orders, we've been using zoom a lot more. The only problem I've noticed is using a photo as my background, and the same issues arise with both my work and personal accounts.

BTW, I've been on zoom meetings with over a thousand people, but the controls have been set so that I can't see anyone except the host or the panelists, can't turn on my microphone, and can only send chat messages to a small group of "panelists" although on some meetings, the Q&A function allows everyone to chat with everyone.

any sip provider like sipgate works fine for this

I don't think sipgate is in the USA any longer.