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November 2019 was a perfect time for Microsoft Digital, the organization that powers, transforms, and protects Microsoft, to re-evaluate Microsoft’s telephony solution. The Microsoft Teams Enterprise Voice solution was developing rapidly, offering a fully cloud-based architecture and mature Enterprise Voice features.
Around this time, the Microsoft Australia region decided to move its Sydney office. It was an opportunity to upgrade all the operational systems as necessary.
Our goal was to make our environment more secure and save recurring costs by moving the on-premises systems to the cloud.
—Chee Ming Tan, service engineer, Microsoft Digital
It had been years since the existing individual, receptionist, and conference room telephones were installed. Market conditions and telephony offerings had changed considerably.
Chee Ming Tan, a service engineer with Microsoft Digital, realized that the Phone System with Calling Plans offering in Microsoft Teams might be the right solution for the Australia offices.
“We wanted to use the latest technology in our new offices,” Tan says. “Our goal was to make our environment more secure and save recurring costs by moving the on-premises systems to the cloud.”
Microsoft Australia was an ideal candidate to try a widespread internal deployment of Phone System with Calling Plans. With 2,000 users and endpoints in six offices across vast distances, the region would be able to try the solution at scale.
If the Australia rollout was successful, it would be the first Microsoft subsidiary to rely solely on the fully cloud-based Microsoft Teams Phone System solution for everyday communication. The initiative would lay the groundwork for potentially taking the solution to more than 180,000 Microsoft employees and contractors around the world.
[See how Microsoft Teams helps Microsoft communicate with employees at scale. Find out more about how Microsoft implemented a Zero Trust security model.]
Decoupling phones and endpoints from physical spaces
Out of the box, Microsoft Teams supports the ability for users to make voice over IP (VoIP) calls from Teams client to Teams client. In addition, Microsoft Teams now has the capability to handle calls to and from landlines and mobile phones that connect through a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).
To enable users to make, receive, and transfer calls to and from landlines and mobile phones on a PSTN, Microsoft Teams has three options:
- Use Microsoft Teams Phone System with Calling Plans, and Microsoft provides the phone number to users and PSTN services. Australia is unique because it’s a “lighthouse” country, where Telstra (a telephony vendor in Australia) provides the native Calling Plans in the region rather than Microsoft. This kind of lighthouse relationship occurs in only two regions globally—Australia with Telstra and Japan with Softbank.
- Use Operator Connect, where users can select the carrier they want to use and quickly provision numbers to users.
- Use direct routing, where organizations can connect their existing PSTN systems to Microsoft Teams via an SBC (Session Boarder Controller) and select the carrier they want to use.
These PSTN solutions all allow Microsoft Teams users to talk with anyone internally using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) or externally via a phone number. By selecting one of these PSTN options, customers can now essentially turn any PC, Mac, or mobile device into a phone.
Without the need to use local infrastructure, Microsoft Australia would be able to provide business voice numbers even to people not associated with a building. The workspaces could be flexible rather than being associated with seats in an office.
“We could clear out our on-premises environment,” Tan says. “With Microsoft Teams Business Voice in the cloud, no matter where I am in the world, I’m being serviced at the closest data center, not one inside a company infrastructure.”
The team knew that engineering excellence and a positive customer experience was key to a successful deployment of Microsoft Teams Phone System. “We had to port and thoroughly test all the available features and prep the users before any change in workflow,” Tan says.
This would be much easier with a supportive calling plan service provider.
Helpfully, Telstra, a large telecommunications provider in Australia, has had a close working relationship with Microsoft for decades. Telstra offers customers a variety of phone plans, access to the National Broadband Network, business phones, and more.
“We held our annual cross-team meeting with Telstra,” Tan says. “That’s where we first ideated a possible solution. We wanted to bring them in from the start so that we could work closely together and quickly solve any issues.”
Leon Wright, a product marketing manager in Microsoft Australia, works with Telstra and had helped develop the Telstra calling plans. The annual meeting had a dual purpose: to check in with a long-term business partner and to explore a telephony upgrade for Microsoft itself that would roll out at a continent-wide scale.
“Microsoft has more extensive requirements than many organizations with regards to security and reliability,” Wright says. “Phone System enhances your security posture quite significantly because voice services within the Teams tenant now wrap into the Microsoft 365 family.”
During the discussions, the team decided to architect and pilot a solution using Telstra calling plans and Microsoft Teams Phone System.
“In certain scenarios, it definitely makes sense,” says Scott Kovach, the Microsoft Teams Service Manager in Microsoft Digital. “When you look at the agility you can introduce, it’s a huge business advantage for us.”
It’s critical to map out the user profiles so the solution meets expectations. Sometimes they will need to use a different process for the same result as before.
—Leon Wright, product marketing manager, Microsoft Australia
Kovach’s team is responsible for the performance and reliability of Microsoft Teams voice services worldwide. “Across the globe, we constantly look at what options are available,” he says. “A lot of carriers are no longer offering standard ISDN and PRI. They’re pushing towards SIP. We had to make a change.”
Full-featured cloud-based telephony for Microsoft Australia and beyond
The project kicked off with a small group of early testers. “Our pilot was conducted over two weeks,” Tan says. “We repeated all the scenarios using different endpoints, such as the user account, a Teams meeting room account, and a Teams call queue account.”
The tests concentrated on the user experience and any impact on voice quality or latency. “We worked closely with the local IT teams so they could anticipate what they would experience locally,” Tan says. “Performance depends on where you are and the infrastructure available.”
Adoption and change management tactics need to vary by role and workstream. “It’s critical to map out the user profiles so the solution meets expectations,” Wright says. “Sometimes they will need to use a different process for the same result as before.”
Setting expectations is key, Wright says. “You don’t want to be halfway through a deployment and find out you don’t have an important feature for a user group, then it stops the process. Emphasize network readiness and test properly and thoroughly.”
Once the team achieved its reliability and quality objectives, the Australia team continued the rollout. The project was completed in June 2021. “It took longer than what a customer would experience because we tied it to our office relocations,” Tan says.
In fact, the US subsidiary recently onboarded 22,000 users to a similar calling plan solution in about six months. “It went quicker than I expected,” Kovach says. “We were able to get the releasing carrier to provide numbers in a large volume.”
The first part of the US deployment was hastened by the COVID-19 pandemic. “When COVID-19 hit in 2020, Microsoft’s retail store folks went to work from home,” Kovach says. “We spun up phone numbers in calling plans for all 110 stores. They were up and running within a month.”
Before deploying in the US, the solution needed to address requirements for emergency calling services, number portability, Telco service, and support-level parity. Dynamic emergency calling for Microsoft Teams Calling Plans and Phone System on a direct routing architecture let the customer configure and route calls and notify security personnel based on the current location of the Microsoft Teams client.
Globally, the new location-based routing functionality that complies with country and region-specific regulations about placing calls has allowed the Microsoft Teams Phone System to be deployed in Microsoft India offices.
Looking ahead to ongoing benefits and cost reduction
The successful deployment has provided immediate cost savings for Microsoft Australia. Now, the team doesn’t have to deploy local devices any longer. Going forward with the Telstra calling plan, these are no longer required. This means Microsoft can cut maintenance costs and eliminate another potential point of failure.
What’s next for Microsoft’s internal use of Phone System and the other Microsoft Teams voice options?
“We are going to expand our use of Calling Plans and potentially Operator Connect,” Kovach says. “We keep watching the market and will support customers as the remote workforce aligns with the usage of these types of technologies.”
In today’s changing workplaces, scalability is central to efficient operations.
“The flexible workspace concept is becoming more and more of a driving force,” Kovach says. “If you build for a certain number of seats in an office, sometimes it’s not possible to add to that infrastructure another 100 percent growth for remote workers. Using cloud offers that agility.”
Learn more about Microsoft Teams Phone.
Check out these tips on Microsoft Phone System features.
Plan how to manage your voice solution in Microsoft Teams.
See how Microsoft Teams helps Microsoft communicate with employees at scale.
Find out more about how Microsoft implemented a Zero Trust security model.
