Microsoft Teams is a fixture today in peoples’ working lives. Enabling 145 million people to communicate and collaborate daily, Teams highlights how Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC&C) are now at the forefront of organisations’ communications requirements.
Moreover, Teams has stepped up a true alternative to traditional telephone applications during the pandemic.
One example of this is direct routing. Direct routing connects Teams to an organisation’s traditional phone network (PSTN). This enables them to make, receive and transfer calls to and from Teams like a traditional PBX system, but without the need of having a hosted telephone application or on-premise PBX.
One of the biggest benefits of this is that it’s more cost effective than options like Microsoft’s Calling Plans, and other solutions on the market. Plus, with Microsoft Calling Plans there’s no dedicated point of contact for users, and with limited support to port numbers this process can become complicated and time consuming for IT teams.
Perhaps most importantly in the current business landscape, direct routing enables home, flexible and remote working, with reliable SIP connectivity, resilience and availability.
Responding to Changes in How We Work
“The way people communicate has changed,” says Paul Taylor, sales & marketing director at Voiceflex. “We use Microsoft Teams internally, but we don’t make any telephone calls anymore. Everybody you call, you call on Teams.”
However, Taylor says not all SIP service providers are the same; the SIP platforms, features, network topology and commercials will differ.
He maintains that Voiceflex’s provision of direct routing with Teams is a more cost-effective alternative to traditional price models for supplying telephone lines. Many organisations don’t need the number of lines they are currently paying for, given the huge rise in use of Teams as a primary communication method, he says.
