IETF | Meetecho Participant Guide

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While most IETF work takes place online, meetings and other events such as Hackathons provide in-person opportunities to advance work within the IETF.
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The global IETF community works together in many different ways to produce high quality, relevant technical documents that influence the way people design, use, and manage the Internet.
By supporting the IETF today, you are ensuring a free and open Internet exists tomorrow.
Meetecho is the main IETF meeting participation tool used by both remote and onsite participants. We recommend that all meeting participants familiarize themselves with Meetecho.
This guide has been updated for IETF 123 on 2025-07-07
Note: Meeting sessions include an automated transcription feature that will be accessible from the Meetecho client and will be visible in the meeting rooms.
Meetecho is a WebRTC application that is accessed through a web browser, so you do not need to install anything, just follow the appropriate link.
Meetecho provides all of the normal features of a video-conferencing service, as well as some IETF-specific features, including integrated groupchat and links to the sessions materials in the Datatracker.
Onsite participation at IETF meetings requires using Meetecho to sign in at the beginning of each session. Meetecho is used to enter the microphone queue, to participate in polls initiated by session chairs, to use the chat feature, and to share and control any slides presented. A special mobile-friendly "lite" version of Meetecho is available.
Both versions of Meetecho are accessed from the Datatracker meeting agenda page which shows a list of icons next to the name of each session.
Features of the onsite "lite" client
The client provides two basic features:
The remote "full" client provides the full range of features of Meetecho.
This video provides an overview of Meetecho features for participants.
Meetecho aim to locate their servers as close to each meeting venue as possible.
If you are using a VPN during an IETF meeting and have the option to choose a specific exit point, choosing one as close to the venue as possible is preferred. This will reduce latency in connecting to the Meetecho servers and make tasks such as changing slides and managing the queue more responsive. Meetecho will still work with an exit point more distant, however this will increase round-trip time and make things less responsive.
Of course, in general, there is some performance tradeoff with VPNs as the encryption associated with using them adds some additional overhead.
For IETF meetings, a variety of testing opportunities are usually available in advance of and during meeting week. Even if you have used Meetecho previously, you are encouraged to test your set up ahead of the meeting as updates to Meetecho, browsers, and operating systems may have introduced changes.
Please read the separate Meetecho documentation, which is an illustrated user guide, for full details on how to use the product.
The general expectation is that participants will send audio or video only when recognized by a session chair as part of the queue.
When speaking, please start by stating your name and any affiliation information you would like to share so that information is available to people listing to the audio, including the audio-only recordings of the session.
If you will be presenting using slides, coordinating with the session chair in advance is strongly recommended as there are several options for sharing slides during the session.
If you run into trouble setting up for an IETF meeting using Meetecho, or would like additional information, please contact support@ietf.org.