In order to serve as a trusted advisor to our clients, we need to stay up to speed with the latest IT trends and solutions. To achieve that, our team of IT experts attends weekly training sessions conducted by various IT solution providers. Based on our extensive experience and sales volume with the suppliers, we receive exclusive, direct and usually in-person training from these suppliers. Our Tech Talks blog series offers a snapshot of these educational sessions.
Does your company already rely on the Microsoft 365 suite and Teams for productivity and efficient collaboration? If so, one of our partners – a leading business technology solutions supplier – can help you turn Teams into a full-blown cloud PBX. With two options for Teams Unified Communications (UC), this provider can significantly expand your business calling functionality. If that sounds like something that could benefit your company, here’s some essential information to consider about our partner and how they can enhance your communication capabilities while still containing costs.
Provider Overview
Based in Ohio and founded in 1998, this provider delivers a range of technology solutions – including data, voice, security, cloud communications, and managed services – to more than 35,000 companies throughout the U.S. They leverage a customer-first approach and strive to deliver exceptional service to the businesses that rely on them for Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS), SD-WAN, managed security services and other vital IT solutions. In addition to their headquarters, the supplier maintains a network management center in Chicago.
Featured Offerings: Teams UC Solutions
For companies looking to add business voice functionality to Teams, this supplier has two offerings that give end users access to full cloud phone system functionality through Microsoft’s UC app. You can select whichever option makes the most sense depending on your organization’s communication and collaboration needs.
- Teams direct routing: This option works best for businesses that want to expand calling capabilities and management while still controlling PBX functionality and dialing. Key features and advantages include the following:
- $9.99 unlimited plan (compared to $12.00 domestic dialing plan from Microsoft)
- Additional voice support via the UC supplier
- Fast and simple implementation process
- Pay per call plan with no need for an international plan
- Streamlined migration of current PRI customers
- Geo-redundant SBCs via Microsoft Azure
- Teams direct routing: This option works best for businesses that want to expand calling capabilities and management while still controlling PBX functionality and dialing. Key features and advantages include the following:
- Teams hosted phone system integration: This hybrid solution integrates the supplier’s hosted phone system with Teams. You can achieve optimal VoIP functionality by integrating capabilities such as presence, shared line appearance and extension dialing into your Teams instance. Key advantages include the following:
- Fast deployment
- High-level voice support from the UC supplier
- Robust hosted PBX features
- Teams functioning as a shared device to the provider’s hosted seat
- Backup for calling in the event of a Microsoft auth services outage
- Elimination of wasted Microsoft licensing costs for end users who opt not to utilize Teams
- Configuration doesn’t require Microsoft global admin expertise
- Teams hosted phone system integration: This hybrid solution integrates the supplier’s hosted phone system with Teams. You can achieve optimal VoIP functionality by integrating capabilities such as presence, shared line appearance and extension dialing into your Teams instance. Key advantages include the following:
If you’re interested in learning more about voice enabling Teams, our trusted advisors would be happy to help you evaluate your options from this supplier and others in the UC solution space. With our extensive partner network and advanced tools, we can rapidly assemble information that would take you weeks to put together shopping around on your own. Our advisors can also quickly produce objective side-by-side comparison matrices to assist you in identifying the best products for your business. On top of all that, our price parity guarantee means that working with us won’t cost you any more than going directly to the supplier.
For more information on our advisory services, connect with our team today by emailing sales@stratospherenetworks.com or calling 877-599-3999.
