May 19, 2023 // Product
Voxology is the premiere Direct Routing choice for enterprise customers of Microsoft Teams. The shift to remote and hybrid work environments has caused companies to transition away from traditional communications services to Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) providers like Microsoft Teams.
Microsoft offers their own telephony service for Teams (on top of messaging, video-calling, intra-Teams calling and file-sharing) which can be added to any Teams user by providing them with the Microsoft Phone System and Calling Plans licenses. While this option is the simplest and quickest way to get started, it’s difficult for many organizations to lose the pricing, features and flexibility they are used to with traditional telephony providers.
The solution? Direct Routing for Microsoft Teams.
Direct Routing allows Microsoft Teams users to integrate third party telephony providers into the Microsoft Phone System. The global coverage, competitive rates and feature capabilities available through third-party telephony services has made Direct Routing the most popular option among Teams’ users.
As of 2021, more than 85% of Microsoft Teams’ global users have Direct Routing in favor of Microsoft’s Calling Plans.
If Microsoft’s Calling Plans do not support all the countries you need to call into, or if your company requires connection to analog devices such as a desk phone, or you have an existing contract with a PSTN carrier like Voxology, or if you just want a more cost-effective telephony solution, Direct Routing may be the best solution for your organization.
We make it easy to connect to MS Teams Direct Routing.
A Microsoft Teams license on its own does not offer telephony services. By default, Teams only offers messaging and video calling for communication. However, Microsoft’s add-on license, Phone System, enables users with call control and basic PBX functionality to use the Teams application to place, receive and transfer phone calls.
Importantly, Microsoft Phone System by itself only supports calls placed to users in the same organization as the caller. This is because the Phone System doesn’t have a default connection to the PSTN. Calls to users in the same organization don’t need to connect to the PSTN since the call starts and ends within the Microsoft Phone System.
To place external calls from Teams (calls placed to people outside of your organization), you’ll need to connect the Microsoft Phone System to the PSTN through either Microsoft’s native Calling Plan or a third-party provider with Direct Routing.
The major benefit of Direct Routing is that you get to pick your provider. Meaning you can integrate Voxology with Teams and connect it to Microsoft Phone System. There are a number of benefits that come with using Voxology as your Direct Routing provider, including:
Direct Routing integrated with Voxology delivers more flexibility and functionality to organizations that have complex communication requirements and helps you make the most of your Microsoft Teams UCaaS investment.