Whether you’re supporting 30 users or 30,000, you have options when it comes to SIP and emergency call routing in Microsoft Teams. However, which telephony model to select doesn’t only affect a Teams environment. Its impacts on your communications technology stack can be felt today and in the future.
It is also essential to consider your emergency services communications in Teams, especially in the US where e911 regulations are complicated and time-consuming to navigate. If you’re using Microsoft Teams, you’re already using Bandwidth’s network, but did you know you can go directly to Bandwidth for SIP, SMS and E911 to achieve compliance and accommodate complex use cases? When you’re planning for multi-campus, hybrid cloud, or remote workers – it can be helpful to work directly with a carrier like Bandwidth to accommodate complexity.
Bandwidth, which delivers 911 capabilities to more than 20 million users, is one of only three providers certified to deliver Dynamic E911 calling for Teams Direct Routing. In addition, the company’s E911 capabilities support both Kari’s Law and RAY BAUM’s Act, two regulations with significant impacts on in-office, hybrid and remote workforces.
Calling plans are a good fit for SMBs
Teams provides you with numerous voice options. One option, Teams’ calling plans, give each user a phone number, a bundle of minutes, and VoIP connectivity. Using calling plans gives you one provider for your phone system, and allows for self-service deployment with an online portal — it’s built into Teams. Often, calling plans are best-suited for small-to-medium-sized companies with limited geographic scope.
The downsides? Calling plans can be more expensive, depending on your company’s size, and can cap on domestic and international usage. In addition, because Microsoft is a wholesaler of carrier services, it can have less insight and control into the network than carriers. Microsoft works through its communications resellers to troubleshoot and resolve issues, which can make it harder to manage users, port numbers, and control migrations.
The Direct Routing Approach
Another option is direct routing, which allows you to bring your own session border controller (SBC) and carrier, like Bandwidth. Also known as the Bring Your Own Carrier (BYOC) model, Direct Routing’s advantages include lower costs by paying for usage, control over cloud migrations, and quicker number management. Direct routing also gives organisations the ability to consolidate telecom vendors across different unified communications as a service (UCaaS), conferencing, and contact centre as a service (CCaaS) platforms.
Direct routing is best suited for global enterprises with over 1,000 seats, and with many vendors and CCaaS/UCaaS platforms. With Bandwidth as your direct routing partner, you can solve for Dynamic Location Routing (DLR) and get one-stop PSTN access in 38 countries and territories worldwide. The downside here is that depending on your carrier, direct routing can be time-consuming to configure so it’s best suited for large-scale, complex organisations.
A Smooth Operator
The final option for Microsoft Teams users is Operator Connect. This is similar to Direct Routing but offers less flexibility over your carrier, and is best for SMBs with straightforward use cases that want an approved carrier.
With Operator Connect, companies can only plug in Microsoft-approved carriers but receive carrier service level agreements (SLAs). IT can deploy Operator Connect with a turnkey framework and a user-friendly front-end, so it’s easy to assign telephone numbers without using an external provider. Similar to direct routing, organisations using Operator Connect can also lower costs by paying for usage, and pooling telephony costs across all contact centre, unified communications and conferencing platforms.
However, there are several use cases when Operator Connect is not suitable for SBMs. This offers less flexibility than Direct Routing and it’s not ideal for complex requirements such as call centres, call-forking or control over SBCs. In addition, customers are tied into using Microsoft-approved carriers, and isn’t ideal for larger businesses with more complex requirements.
Learn about Bandwidth’s Direct Routing solution, Duet for Teams.
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