For a while Telstra was the monopoly Australian provider for calling plans in Microsoft Teams. Recently a few other carriers have entered the market space but they like Telstra, tend to focus on the enterprise market rather than the SME market.

Using technology called Direct Routing, any SIP trunk provider can be connected to Teams via either a software or hardware SBC (Session Border Controller). It doesn’t matter whether they are trusted household names like Optus, TPG and Vodaphone or new providers like Twilio, Maxo and Plivo.

Basically, the SBC sits between Microsoft Teams and the SIP trunk provider and protects and regulates the IP communication flow between your carrier and the Teams infrastructure. SBCs can handle special conditions like failover, call routing when the SIP trunk is down, multiple SIP trunk providers (and route based on least cost) and a myriad of functions.

Some carriers have integrated SBC options where you don't have to manage the SBC and its presence is basically invisible to you the end-user. Others require you to have your own SBC and only offer SIP trunks. Which solution is best for you will depend on a number of factors like the number of phone numbers, call volumes, failover requirements, desired level of flexibility with call routing, etc...

Once you have the infrastructure in place, the results are more much more feature-rich and cost-effective solution compared to traditional on-premises telephony infrastructure.

Microsoft Teams offers flexibility

Microsoft Teams connected to a more cost-effective Telco does more than just save you money on monthly telephony costs. It can improve your current business processes and give you new flexibility and options to meet your future business needs.

The solution makes it possible for staff to work as if they are in the office no matter where they are. It includes all the traditional PABX features that you're used to and adds others that can significantly improve your business processes.

Teams meetings and more...

Teams integrated with a cloud telco provider can give you:

• Significantly lower monthly costs
• The same phone numbers your customers have always used to contact you
• Freedom for staff to work in the office, at home or at new premises
• One-click to call-back to the caller and/or their alternate contact details
• Voicemail that has caller names and contact details attached
• Automatically created text versions of the voicemail attached to the voicemail recording
• Simplified relocation and scaling of your business
• Customer announcements and menus that can be changed by editing the text instead of re-recording them.
• Self-managed holiday and business hours announcements
• Speech to text that improves automatically as Microsoft improves its service

A Teams PABX means less headaches

When you move from a legacy PABX to a modern voice solution like Teams connected to your choice of carrier you can leave behind:

• Lock-in to a single vendor for handset choices
• Acquiring a handset for every user
• Phone numbers tied to physical locations
• On-premises equipment that requires maintenance and a disaster recovery plan
• On-Premises UPS to provide power during outages
• The need to record and re-record messages for your menus and queues
• Hardware upgrades
• Separate building wiring for voice and data

What's the process to move to Teams?

The process for moving to Teams is not all that dissimilar to changing carriers or PABX systems for any other system. The main things you need are:

• Appropriate Microsoft 365 licences
• An SBC (such as Anynode) or a carrier that offers an integrated SBC service (like BreezeConnect)
• SIP trunks ( basically a digital replacement for legacy services like PSTN or ISDN lines)
• Port your phone numbers to the new carrier
• Enjoy the benefits

Plenty of businesses have benefitted by adding phone calling to their existing Teams setup. If you want to read about a case study of an SME in Brisbane that we've helped, check out the Brisbane Milk case study.