This post has been republished via RSS; it originally appeared at: New blog articles in Microsoft Tech Community.
With organizations around the world transitioning to the new normal of hybrid work, Microsoft Teams meetings are critical for people to collaborate and stay connected. Even though joining Teams meetings through Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is becoming more common, we know that people join Teams meetings while they are on the go, potentially with a spotty internet connection. Audio conferencing in Teams provides peace of mind that users will be able to join their Teams meeting from virtually any device regardless of location and without relying on an internet connection. To expand the audio conferencing benefits we offer today, we are partnering with qualified operators to launch Operator Connect Conferencing, a new operator-managed service in commercial, worldwide commercial public sector, education, non-profit, and Government Community Cloud (GCC) segments1that allows tenant admins to bring their own operators for audio conferencing in Teams.
Operator Connect Conferencing is now generally available, enabling increased flexibility and options for audio conferencing in Teams. Using the same administrator interface as Operator Connect, this new service allows tenant admins to add participating operator dial-in numbers to a Teams audio conferencing bridge. You can keep your existing contract with any of the participating operators or select from a list of partners within the “Operators” tab in the Teams admin center.
Operator Connect Conferencing is an operator-managed service that provides the following benefits:
- Bring your own operator for audio conferencing in Teams, for operators participating in the program: Maintain your preferred operator contracts as you migrate existing PSTN infrastructure to the cloud.
- Variety of operators available at your fingertips: Diversify your PSTN infrastructure to include additional qualified operators.
- Expanded geographic dial-in coverage: Additional dial-in locations available to support your multi-national needs.
- Enhanced support and reliability: The tight partnership with operators provides enhanced technical support and service level agreements to address reliability.
Operator Connect Conferencing is generally available with the initial wave of qualified operators, which includes BT, Deutsche Telekom, Intrado, NTT, Orange Business Services and Telenor. We have been working in close partnership with these operators to create a seamlessly integrated experience and will continue to add qualified operators to the program over the next year. You can always refer to our Operator Directory for a complete list of operators and the geographies they cover. Learn more about planning for and configuring Operator Connect Conferencing in your organization.
¹No availability in Government Community Cloud (GCC) High or Department of Defense (DoD)