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Microsoft Teams has seen exponential growth since the 2020 pandemic. Millions of organisations have adopted Teams for meeting, messaging and increasingly – PSTN calling.
Globally, over 20 million users have adopted Microsoft Teams PSTN calling. With the addition of PSTN calling, Teams users can make and receive external phone calls via the Teams app. They can also choose to migrate their existing geographic or inbound numbers - or connect new ones.
Teams PSTN calling is a proven and reliable alternative to stand-alone phone systems, and increasingly, it is a top choice for organisations seeking UCaaS cost-savings.
Many organisations were quick to adopt UCaaS at the height of the Pandemic. Now, four years later, many of those same companies are seeking to renew or refresh their communications.
This refresh cycle will look different to the recent past. Prior to 2024, the majority of UCaaS adoption was enterprises moving from legacy phone services into the cloud. Today, a growing number of planned migrations will be a transition from one cloud calling platform to another.
A large portion of the market is potentially in play. Recent surveys from Bandwidth and Cavell indicate that approximately half of large companies that have already adopted UCaaS are now evaluating other UCaaS providers. Given the popularity of Teams calling, we can expect that the Microsoft platform will be a top contender.
But as this purchase and refresh cycle begins, there is also another hidden pressure: cost.
Companies, large and small, are cutting costs. In this climate, CTOs and Managed Service Providers are under pressure to deliver more value from their UCaaS and Telecom stack.
For service providers, this combination of renewal and cost pressure is both risk and an opportunity.
On the one hand, clients that have previously been ‘locked in’ with competitors will now be considering their options. And as we have seen, Teams calling – and cost savings – will be high on their list.
This means now is a great time to re-engage with prospects, showing how you can help them reduce or manage their communications overhead.
The reverse is also true for incumbent Microsoft Partners and Systems Integrators. You need to be ready to put forward cost-saving options that help defend your business.
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To win in this market, you need to be able to deliver Teams calling in a cost-effective way. In practice this means delivering on four elements:
While there are several ways to connect Teams to the PSTN, ‘Direct Routing’ is the method most often chosen for enterprise and mid-market customers.
Direct Routing is a sophisticated method of switching on calling in Teams. Crucially, this method allows end-customers to separate their UCaaS platform (Teams) and their telecom carrier (Calling plan). In the United States this approach is calling ‘BYO Carrier’ – and is increasingly popular.
With Direct Routing, the platform and calling plan are separate, so it’s easier for customers to change to a new carrier. They can enjoy better value calling – without needing to migrate to a new platform. This takes away the traditional ‘lock in’ barriers that kept many customers tied to the big telcos.
If you’re an MSP or System Integrator keen to win business off the major networks – Direct Routing is your first step towards delivering better value calling in Teams.
User-based pricing is the norm for Teams calling. A single fixed cost per user, per month. However, in this economy, with fewer desk-based roles, many organisations are finding they no longer have the high call volumes to justify a fixed ‘per user’ cost.
The alternative is channel-based pricing, where a single SIP trunk channel is shared between multiple users. This channel-based approach effectively divides the channel cost by the number of concurrent calls that need to be made.
Historically, organisations may have shared a line between 1-4 users. But as overall call volumes drop, call concurrency ratios are rising. Recent research from OMDIA indicates that large organisations are now adopting call concurrency ratios of 1:10, even 1:100.
For cost-conscious clients, moving to a channel-based pricing model could deliver significant savings. This market shift is part of the reason why we have made channel-based plans available as part of our white label Teams calling solution.
Another way to reduce the cost of Teams calling is moving clients from ‘included value’ plans to pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pricing.
Certain externally facing roles, like sales or accounts, will inherently make more calls. But roles with more internal collaboration, like engineering or marketing, will make fewer calls. By paying the same price across all roles, your clients may be over-spending and a PAYG model would deliver savings.
PAYG pricing is ideal for those lower-volume users, meaning that clients only pay for what they use – with no ‘wasted’ unused inclusions.
If your clients manage their own SBC, or it’s something you’re managing for them, consider if there are manual configuration processes than can be replaced.
One pain point that many Microsoft administrators share is the need to manage the PSTN connection to Teams. (Often via a telecom carrier who may be working to their own, slower, timeline).
However, it’s now possible to automate carrier connectivity for Direct Routing. Our white label Teams calling solution provides this capability as standard.
This means, for example, that each time you add a Teams user, the carrier instantly initiates flow-through provisioning of SIP trunks and conditions the assigned numbers.
If you’ve ever had to wait hours (or days) while your carrier setup a SIP Trunk and numbers with Direct Routing, you’ll know just how much value this can add. This simple carrier automation can reduce a slow manual process down to a few minutes.
It’s also possible to go further, automating not just the carrier connectivity but the Microsoft configuration as well.
Assigning numbers and dial plans can be done in a few clicks, without any code. This is ideal if you – or your clients – want to have the control of hands-on management but don’t necessarily want to use Graph API or Powershell.
If you’re not already having ‘cost optimisation’ discussions with your customers – you will be soon. And chances are, many of those conversations will revolve around Teams calling. That is, either moving from another UCaaS platform to Teams, or simply moving to a new carrier.
When considering options to reduce the cost of calling in Teams, Microsoft administors should seek out Direct Routing solutions – which afford greater pricing flexibility. Including the provision of per-channel and PAYG pricing which can substantially reduce the cost of PSTN calling in Teams.
Service providers: If your Teams calling offering is too costly or complex, you should evaluate our ‘Unite Calling’ solution.
With support for Per User and Per Channel billing, a choice of PAYG and included value plans, and carrier automation as standard, Unite Calling gives you more options to manage the cost of Teams calling. A win for you, and your customers.
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