During Ignite 2021, Microsoft announced a new alternative for telephony within the Teams platform known as "Operator Connect".
In the last week of May, 2021 the public preview of Operator Connect (OC) was rolled out and we will discuss about it in a few details.
What is Operator Connect ?
Operator Connect is a model similar to Teams Calling Plans in the sense that enterprise voice for the users can be enabled right from the Teams admin dashboard itself. The only major (among other) difference here is, Microsoft will not be your telco as was the case in Teams Calling Plans, & instead, you'd have the flexibility to choose one of the telephone providers/carriers (as of now there are 11 carriers listed).
* A quick check reveals Swisscom's logo was indicated in March 2021 however in Public Preview, they are absent.
Where can I find the Operator Connect option ?
Teams Admin Center > Voice > Operators
Direct Link - https://admin.teams.microsoft.com/operators
Preview* is mentioned next to Operators as indicated by MSFT as they continue to perfect this model in the background. It is also expected more carriers will integrate into the OC dashboard.
What happens if you click on an Operator ?
Taking BT (British Telecom) as an example, if we click on the Operator's logo, we are presented with a page to select the global regions where the Operator has presence & would like to offer partnership/services
There are two ways to go about this as you can see above.
Choosing Operator can contact me provides fields to input name & email. Basically you're asking the Operator to reach out to you in this case.
Choosing I accept the data transfer notice option gives a pop up as shown below.
MSFT clearly mentions choosing this option will provision the phone numbers provided by the chosen Operator within the M365 admin center.
Let's go back to the previous page & see what else is there to play around with.
So each Operator presents a an Offer Details link which opens in a new tab. This is basically the landing page of the Operator where they're advertising the very feature of OC & their integration with MS Teams to enable hybrid workplace. Here you can place an enquiry or read about this functionality from the providers standpoint.
Scrolling a bit further on BT's page we can see the list of countries currently providing OC & the countries wherein this feature would be rolled out in the near future.
Countries OC Currently Served in Public Preview
BT - 16 Countries
Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States
Intrado - 12 Countries
Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States
NTT - 25 Countries
Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States
NuWave - 15 Countries
Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States
Orange Business Services - 26 Countries
Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, French Guiana, Germany, Guadeloupe, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Martinique, Mayotte, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Réunion, Saint Barthélemy, Saint Martin, Spain, Svalbard, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom
Pure IP - 41 Countries
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong S.A.R., Ireland, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States.
Roger Business - 1 Country
Canada
Tata Communications - 27 Countries
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czechia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong S.A.R., Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States
Telekom Deutschland - 1 Country
Germany
Telenor - 4 Countries
Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden
Verizon - 1 Country
United States
As we already read above by going through BT's page dedicated for OC, more countries will soon be covered under this & it is expected many other carriers will be doing the same.
What if I have an existing contract with my carrier who is also certified for OC ?
This is a question many IT admins will be pondering over right now. Well, if you have an obligation with your current telephone provider and the same provider is on the list of certified partners for Operator Connect, you can maintain your contract with them and leverage Operator Connect.
This will be beneficial in the use cases where enterprises are intending to do away with their on-premise SBC architecture in Teams Direct Routing & would like to maintain a pure in-cloud telephony system. Number Porting is also supported.
Having an SBC on premise integrated with MS Teams for telephony is still the beneficial route if you're still maintaining legacy PBXs / switchboards and do not have immediate plans to move to a cloud only solution. Do remember, Teams Direct Routing (DRaaS or SBCaaS) is still present in over 180 countries and one can't give ignore the additional benefits by hosting a Session Border Controller as well. OC can not be deemed a replacement of Teams DR, not yet anyway ;-)
References
Plan for Operator Connect
Configure Operator Connect
Stay tuned.
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