In the last year, CIOs and IT Managers have been forced to adopt new cloud communication and collaboration tools to allow remote and hybrid work. 80% of managers say they expect more flexible work-from-home policies even after the pandemic emergency passes and most employees say they want to keep the freedom to decide whether to work from the office or remotely.

In this scenario, Microsoft Teams is an all-in-one UC solution that comprehends chats with content sharing, online meetings, webinars, and phone calls in a unique platform. Its simple and intuitive user interface is winning over people’s hearts as it makes smart-working super easy, integrating the most requested UC features.  

But what about VoIP calls in Teams? 

Let’s analyze here the two main options available now to convert Teams into a business phone system connecting it with the PSTN: Direct Routing and Calling Plans. 

Both approaches are effective, but how to choose the best solution for your company? We’ll get into it below. 

 

Microsoft Direct Routing

In this first scenario, using a certified SBC and a SIP Trunk you can connect Microsoft Teams with the  PSTN  without violating any existing contract with the public telephony network.. This allows you to route calls from and to the PSTN directly in Teams, which becomes your new phone system. This model is much more appealing for companies that want to keep the flexibility to choose their own provider while integrating with other enterprise systems.

This solution makes the migration to Teams a breeze, avoiding a large amount of stress and pressure a company-wide migration will generate under your IT department: 

    • It leverages your existing infrastructure
    • The deployment is simple 
    • It is compatible with the analogue devices
    • All your old numbers are ported in Teams 
    • It is cost-effective compared to Microsoft Calling Plans
    • It gives you large flexibility and the external support given by an external provider to which you have entrusted yourself
    • It is available worldwide, with no Country restrictions

Its lack of geographic restrictions and the cost-effective pricing make it the option preferred by multinational companies, though it can be a good choice also for SMBs that aren’t in the list of countries where Microsoft Calling Plans are available (as detailed below). 

 

You can choose between three different hosting options: 

    • customer hosted in Azure: it has faster deployment than on-prem SBC and an excellent network between SBC and Teams Service
    • customer hosted: it is less fast to deploy but the advantage is that you have the control on how it fit
    • carrier hosted: the SBC is hosted in the service provider’s cloud to let you focus only on your business and not on the backend technical aspects. It allows a quality solution that could combine multiple carriers. It is as simple as deploying a normal SIP Trunk 

 

Plus, it’s two birds with one stone: with Direct Routing you currently can use third-parties applications to empower your customer service, adding advanced features to Microsoft Teams native call management options. You can convert Teams into a professional cloud contact center thanks to – for example –  a  customized IVR and queue management software or the advanced contact center analytics.

 

Microsoft Calling Plans 

This second alternative is a Microsoft native solution: acting as a voice provider, Microsoft gives you a phone number and a PSTN service with a bundle of minutes for calls. No additional infrastructure is needed but provisioning users, assigning numbers and porting all of your existing numbers is all your responsibility.

Some points have to be highlighted in this case: it takes almost 24 hours to obtain a new number and almost 2 weeks to port an existing number in Teams, but keep in mind that no integration with Legacy PBX is possible. 

 

A quick and simple deployment and activation allow you to easily handle external calls without any stress because Microsoft manages entirely, via Office 365, a per-user-per-month plan. You don’t have to choose your own third-party carrier. Microsoft offers directly different licenses, with an amount of minutes allocated per user per month for outbound voice traffic (inbound calls are free), to transform Teams into a hosted PBX:

  • Three Domestic outbound plans: 120-minute, 240-minute, and 1200-minute (3000-minute for US, FR and CA)
  • One plan for 1200-minute (3000-minute for US, FR, and CA) domestic calls and 600-minute for international outbound calls

 

If you want to choose this solution you must be aware that it is not available worldwide ( 16 countries are on the list now – other 8 are in the roadmap) and also, due to Microsoft’s own strict calling plans’ guidelines on carriers, there’s not much room for negotiation. Talking about pricing rates, thought for Direct Routing there is no one-size-fits-all, you can say that from a per user per month perspective DR is almost always cheaper than Microsoft’s own Calling Plans.

These limitations can or cannot impact your decision especially if you run a customer service with many agents who daily handle a large number of ad outgoing calls, especially to international locations…

 

Following these considerations, what is the best solution for you? 

Please keep in mind that we’ve been developing UC solutions for more than 15 years, so if you still have doubts or simply want to talk with one of our consultants, just book your slot here!