If you’re ready to transform Microsoft Teams into your all-in-one UCaaS environment for the age of hybrid work, then you’ll need to know a thing or two about Phone System. The Microsoft 365 Phone System is the telephony solution provided by Microsoft to enable call control and PBX (Private Branch Exchange) capabilities in your Microsoft cloud.
With Microsoft Teams Phone System, you can link your Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) with the Microsoft cloud in several ways to allow for external calling. The technology also allows for internal calling without access to the PSTN.
Here’s what you need to know about switching on your Microsoft Teams Phone System.
Buying Your Phone System License
The first step in accessing voice within Microsoft Teams is buying and assigning your Phone System license. You’ll then need to follow the same steps required to assign a Microsoft 365 license to each user who needs to access the phone system. You can find a complete guide on how to do that here.
There are three ways to access Teams Phone System:
- Microsoft 365 G1/G3, A1/A3, or E1/E3 and a Teams Phone with calling bundle: This gives you a Microsoft Domestic calling plan and access to the Teams Phone System PBX capabilities and allows all your number management to be handled by Microsoft.
- Microsoft 365 G1/G3, A1/A3, or E1/E3 and Teams Phone Standard license with a separate calling plan or solution from your PSTN carrier: This model provides access to the Teams phone system, but you still need to use your own PSTN connectivity.
- Microsoft E5/A5/G5 plan and Microsoft Calling Plans / Third-party connectivity: This gives you access to the Phone System and requires you to choose your own PSTN connection option.
Choosing your PSTN Connectivity Option
Once you have your licenses, and you’ve assigned them to your users, the next step is choosing your PSTN connectivity option. There are currently 3 ways to access the PSTN with Microsoft Teams:
Calling Plan
Considered the simplest option for bringing calling into Teams, Calling Plan uses Microsoft as your cloud-based carrier for communications. If you want an all-in-one solution with minimal set-up, this could be the choice for you. However, Microsoft calling plans aren’t available in every region.
With this option, you get Phone System access with domestic or international calling plans from Microsoft, and Microsoft handles all your phone number management for you. You don’t need to buy or manage SBCs, and you can access emergency calling and dynamic calling too.
Operator Connect
With Operator Connect, you access one of the partner “Operators” in the Microsoft Operator Connect program, and they manage the service for bringing calling into Teams for you. The carrier handles all the SBCs and PSTN connectivity, and you can obtain numbers through your carrier too.
Operator Connect is a good choice if Microsoft calling plans aren’t available in your region, and you don’t want to deal with the extra configuration requirements associated with direct routing. You can find the carriers participating in Operator Connect here.
Direct Routing
