Important information for schools that use G Suite for Education
Article published: 3 June 2020
Please see the following information we have received from Google regarding Google Meet.
With the increase in distance learning around the world, many schools are using Google Meet to connect instructors, students, and staff. We’re writing to let you know that if users in your domain choose the dial-in option, they’ll only see a United States number to join the meeting. This may result in unexpected international calling charges from users’ telephone service providers.
What do I need to know?
One of the ways to join a Meet video meeting is to use a provided dial-in number instead of joining on the web or from the Meet app. For G Suite for Education customers, these dial-in numbers are United States numbers.
What do I need to do?
To prevent international charges from your users’ telephone service providers, you can either purchase G Suite Enterprise for Education licences, or prohibit users from joining meetings by phone.
To prevent users from joining video meetings by phone:
1. Log in to the Admin console
2. From the Admin console Home page, go to Apps > G Suite > Google Meet
3. Click on Meet video settings
4. Set the Telephony setting to OFF
If you leave the Telephony setting in Meet ON, notify users of possible charges. If you choose to keep the Telephony capability enabled for your domain (or certain organisations within your domain), notify your users that the phone number is a United States-based phone number and they may incur international calling charges from their phone service provider.
Please note that the meeting organiser’s settings determine the setting applied to a particular Meet video meeting. For example, if a teacher invites students to a meeting and telephony is enabled for that teacher’s organisational unit (OU), students will see dial-in instructions for the meeting—regardless of whether telephony is disabled for their own OU.
For schools that have recently been setup or are in the process of being setup under the DfE funded project, this setting will already be disabled for you.
For schools that subscribe to The ICT Service Google Cloud Management Service, our Technical Support Team have also pro-actively disabled this setting for you.
For more help and support, please contact The ICT Service Helpline by calling 0300 300 0000 or email support@theictservice.org.uk
We recommend you frequently visit our website www.theictservice.org.uk for latest updates and new resources to support you through the COVID-19 disruption.
You can also follow us on Twitter to access the updates as soon as they are released.
To reassure you, the current support mechanisms that The ICT Service provide remain in place. All school staff can continue to call us on 0300 300 0000 or email us at support@theictservice.org.uk.
You can use the contact details above for ANY request, whether it’s sales, consultancy or support. This includes:
- Application Support to help your office staff using their MIS or Finance packages, and for general support issues such as resetting passwords or remote access.
- Technical Support to help you with technical ICT issues.
- Curriculum / Learning / SEN Support for help and assistance in your teaching and learning activities, and helping you with ideas for delivering lessons in the classroom or remotely.
