The benefits of Direct Routing for Microsoft Teams

During the pandemic, the day-to-day routines of people around the world changed drastically. Overnight, an estimated 71% of the workforce was working from home, an increase of over 50% from the pre-pandemic figure.

This sudden shift in how people worked together quickly made it clear that fewer face-to-face meetings and collaboration sessions could lead to silos within companies and teams. This realization led to the wide and fast adoption of communications platforms, including Microsoft Teams.

The deep integration between Teams and Microsoft Office 365 made it one of the go-to collaborations platform for many businesses across the globe. However, adoption of the platform's telephony features has been slower than anticipated. This hesitation is primarily due to its modest telephony offerings. Compared to the rich feature sets offered by legacy communications platforms, Teams has found it challenging to compete with features that make up essential parts of workflows and customer-facing tools.

For this reason, Microsoft developed Direct Routing as an oalternative to calling plans for companies who needed to connect employees across disparate locations.

Top benefits of Direct Routing for Microsoft Teams

With Direct Routing, Teams users can bring their own carriers to the Microsoft platform for global PSTN access within Teams. Below, we’ll outline the benefits of using Direct Routing instead of a Microsoft Teams calling plan.

High-quality calling

Direct Routing can help businesses improve call quality. For example, providers can allow organizations to make direct calls to places where Teams coverage might be limited. And since telephony is their primary business, providers often prioritize call quality and reliability.

Access to more direct connections can result in fewer dropped calls and better overall call quality, improving the communication experience for both employees and customers.

Cost savings

Microsoft offers PSTN connectivity to users by partnering with different carriers and aggregators. While bundling telephony through Microsoft might seem convenient, these indirect partnerships can result in expensive calling plans. Choosing a provider with direct PSTN access means you cut out the middlemen, leading to significant cost savings.

Businesses can also take advantage of custom rates with their existing telephony partners within Teams and remove the need for expensive on-premise private branch eXchange (PBX) equipment. What’s more, some providers include the session border controller (SBC) cost in the cost of your Direct Routing usage, allowing you to say goodbye to large licensing fees and pay only for your SIP Trunk usage.

Global coverage

With many teams shifting to remote or virtual environments, businesses have taken advantage of the opportunity to expand their talent pools beyond their geographical office boundaries.

While a global talent pool gave companies more hiring options, it created a challenge to connect team members around the world. In addition, the coverage included in Microsoft Teams’s calling plans is often limited, making it difficult or expensive to make or receive calls, especially in emerging markets. However, choosing a provider with a global network can help you connect internationally distributed teams.

More control

Direct Routing offers organizations more flexibility and control than a Microsoft calling plan or Operator Connect. By bringing their own carriers, businesses can choose to implement a wide array of telephony features not offered with a Teams plan.

By choosing Direct Routing, organizations can build a unified communications (UC) platform that serves their needs.

Take advantage of the benefits of Direct Routing

With higher-quality calls, lower costs, widespread coverage, and more control, it’s easy to see why many businesses choose Direct Routing over a Microsoft Teams calling plan. All that’s left for your organization to do is choose a provider.

With local numbers in over 140 countries, Telnyx can help your organization leverage Direct Routing to connect your team members, regardless of location. Below are some of our qualifications.

• A network built for real-time communications. Partnering with Telnyx for Direct Routing means businesses can leverage our secure private network and direct PSTN access, saying goodbye to latency, lag, and jitter for reliably crystal-clear calls.
• Lower fees. Partnering with a provider means businesses can already remove the need for expensive on-premise PBX equipment. What’s more, Telnyx includes the cost of the session border controller (SBC) in your Direct Routing usage, allowing you to nix large licensing fees.
• Stellar support. Telnyx offers 24/7/365 support from the team of engineers who helped build our product from the ground up. Support from experienced professionals means when something goes wrong, you’re not stuck at the end of a long queue waiting for support that isn’t up to scratch.

Talk with our team of experts to learn which solution is right for your business. Or get started with Direct Routing from Telnyx by signing up for a Mission Control Portal account and following our configuration guide.