With more than 1.5 billion active monthly users and 2 billion call minutes used daily, WhatsApp is undeniably one of the most popular social platforms in the world today. Offering a more cost-effective alternative to billed text messaging, WhatsApp has allowed many users to send messages, images and videos, and do voice and video calls, all without worrying about hefty charges from carriers.
But just when things couldn’t get any better, WhatsApp finally added a much-requested feature to its repertoire. In a blog post released in July 2018, WhatsApp confirmed that it now has a group calling feature for voice and video, and it is available for both iOS and Android.
What’s In It For WhatsApp Users?
- When the WhatsApp conference call feature was released last year, it still had a few dents in it. For one, you would have to start the call with just one person and add more participants after. There was no option for doing a group call at once. But a few months ago, WhatsApp released an update where it’s already possible to start a group call with just a few clicks.
- WhatsApp can support up to four people at one time in a conference call. While this is way smaller than FaceTime’s 32 and Facebook Messenger’s 50 participants, this added feature is still fairly new as it was only rolled out last year. So, we can expect more improvements in the coming months, which will hopefully enable users to add more participants in a group call.
- WhatsApp’s group call feature is especially useful for smaller groups. WhatsApp also assures its users that all calls are end-to-end encrypted, which means that you don’t have to worry about privacy issues when making voice and video calls with family and friends.
How Do You Start a Group Call on WhatsApp?
The process of starting a group call on WhatsApp is just like doing a regular voice or video call where you can just start a conversation and click the phone icon at the top right corner of your screen to make a call. Here are some steps:
- Make sure that you’re connected to a WiFi or you’re data is turned on to start the group call.
- Launch WhatsApp and click the Call icon on the top right corner of your screen, choose up to four contacts that you want to join the group call and select either the voice or video icon.
To get the best experience out of this voice and video call feature, WhatsApp reminds it users to make sure that everyone in the call has good internet connection because the quality of the call will be affected if one of the participants has a weak internet connection.
As WhatsApp continues to improve its features to be at par with the competition, its users can still enjoy its voice and video group calling feature where family and friends from across the world can communicate seamlessly without having to pay for those expensive call minutes.