Looking to use Microsoft for Telephony? Chances are you’ll need to work with a telephony provider for it to operate like the system it replaces.
Even for people who work in this space, it can be surprising to learn just how different the offerings are. This is where The Source Guy can really help. We work with all types of Direct Routing and UCaaS providers and are familiar with the nuances, helping you to select the right technology and approach and finding the most suitable provider to deliver it.
Teams Talk
With Microsoft Teams the global standard for collaboration, many companies are naturally looking to Microsoft when it’s time to replace their telephony.
In our experience, choosing Microsoft for telephony is often based on the perception that it simplifies things:
For the IT team generally responsible for making this happen
Many CIOs gravitate towards Teams because they think it solves the app overload issue (consolidating messaging and collaboration with productivity).
It also makes sense from a user perspective. Many have naturally grown accustomed to using Teams and collaboration tools in general these past few months.
There can be other motivations, such as saving money – with or without the offset of reduced mobile costs – and other soft benefits of cloud telephony in general. These are mostly well understood by now and we’re happy to cover those off separately if you’re looking for a general overview.
The above logic is fine if it caters for all the communication scenarios in the business. Fact is, it rarely does. Meaning that Microsoft voice may need to be augmented by other technology to support business and user requirements.
There are other key reasons such as global coverage to deliver in-country telephony, voice quality, high availability SLAs, administration challenges, support and, ironically, simplicity of approach that may necessitate the involvement of a specialist telephony / UCaaS provider to underpin things.
Thankfully there are many third-party provider options - giving you the Teams experience enriched with broader functionality and potentially higher service-levels and coverage.
But with considerable differences in architecture, service and user experience, care has to be taken to ensure the method used and provider chosen is a good fit for your business and user requirements. As ever, the devil is in the detail and it can be anything but simple working out what's best, especially if you try to do it yourself.
What follows is a quick walk through the considerations. The Source Guy are on-hand to delve deeper into these, helping you assess your requirements and the market, ensuring you get the right service and best deal.
MS Licence Requirements
We’ve put together typical Microsoft Licencing requirements to make it easy to review.
What is Microsoft Phone System
MS Phone System is the technology for enabling PBX capabilities in Microsoft 365. This is the standalone PBX without the call plans. It gives you the keypad in Teams and enables Teams users to place/receive outside calls.
It contains basic telephony features which can be sufficient in some cases. If not it would necessitate a hybrid approach, using a third-party provider to deliver some or all the following features: call recording, enhanced IVR / call routing, broad third-party application integration such as CRM, extension dialling, faxing, and contact centre features such as listen, barge, whisper, post-call survey, voice analytics, dashboards and reporting.
Using Teams for Voice Communication
To talk to people outside of your company (sometimes referred to as dial tone) you will need to connect to the PSTN (telephony network).
First you will most likely need MS Phone System and one of the following options:
Microsoft Calling Plans that includes your user phone number(s) and a specified bundle of minutes in limited countries
Direct Routing, either:
DIY - bringing your own Session Border Controller (SBC) equipment, licences, including user licences, SIP trunking, number porting, maintenance / management (requiring decent knowledge of telephony and PowerShell cmdlets) and sourcing calls plans yourself or through the provider.
Use a third-party to deliver all of the above as a service. There are four or five main approaches utilising combinations of MS Phone System, provider SBCs, provider call plans, UCaaS licences, SIP, middleware and Teams device firmware. Many different approaches and 100s of potential sources.
Simplified Architecture for Direct Routing
These as the fundamental components. Providers take various approaches to deliver this, resulting in key functional, service and availability differences. Costs can vary significantly too, and as ever your pay for what you get.
How Can The Source Guy Help
If you are looking for more detailed insight, a telephony market overview or full assistance with your project The Source Guy can help.
We work with all types of Direct Routing and UCaaS providers and are familiar with their nuances.
The Source Guy helps you to select the right technology and approach, finding you the most suitable provider to deliver it, from a pre-qualified portfolio of dozens of providers known to us and trusted.
Let us know how we can help.
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