Operator Connect was hailed as a valuable third option for enabling voice in Microsoft Teams when it was announced earlier this year.
Where Microsoft Calling Plans provides the convenience of managing everything through Microsoft, Direct Routing gives sophisticated functionality at the expense of higher complexity, Operator Connect nestles nicely in the middle, providing the best of both worlds.
However, with Operator Connect now generally available, has this positioning started to change?
Pure IP was one of the first carriers announced for Operator Connect and has worked with Microsoft throughout the preview phase.
Ian Guest, Marketing Director at Pure IP, said that the firm already has over 75 live customers globally on Operator Connect. Many of these were plugging voice into Teams for the first time, but a number were actually moving from either Calling Plans or Direct Routing.
From a Calling Plan perspective, Operator Connect lets businesses stay in the Microsoft tenant while also expanding outside of the regions supported by Microsoft by using their preferred carrier.
It is the dynamic between Operator Connect and Direct Routing, however, that is the most intriguing.
Guest said that he is seeing a lessening of demand for Direct Routing from customers, who are keen to explore the seemingly simpler option.
“Microsoft’s one big objective with Operator Connect is to make it easier for businesses to adopt Teams Calling for their telephony requirements, delivering a truly unified environment for communications and collaboration,” he said.
“With a high level of feature parity between Operator Connect and Direct Routing, and the latter requiring more configuration and PowerShell use to get set up, we are seeing fewer arguments for going down the direction of Direct Routing.”
Two of the deciding factors for customers choosing Operator Connect centre on hardware and skills. Many businesses will have installed Session Border Controllers (SBCs) as part of their Direct Routing deployment, which needs to be maintained, with provisions in place for if they fail. This is stripped away with Operator Connect because the SBC is maintained by the carrier.
Removing the SBC also removes the need for in-house expertise or the cost of having a partner manage it for you.
There is also a simpler process around number assignments because these are carried out in the Teams Admin Center – in much the same way as they would be with Calling Plans. Again, this requires less in-house expertise.
However, there are some complexities that businesses looking to migrate to Operator Connect need to keep in mind.
The process for customers buying voice for Teams for the first time is relatively simple, but the process for those migrating from one of the other two Microsoft voice options is more complicated.
“If you’re moving from Calling Plans or Direct Routing, you need to approach the migration process with caution because there are some challenges,” Guest explained.
“You could end up losing service for some numbers if you don’t follow the correct migration process and confuse the Teams tenant, so there is an argument for getting support from a company that knows what they’re doing.
“There also isn’t currently a method for bulk migration – you need to use PowerShell scripts or go through record by record – so an expert can give you support there too.”
Guest did stress that endorsing Operator Connect is not to say that Direct Routing has no place in the world of voice; there will still be some complex deployments that require the configurability of Direct Routing.
But, at this early stage of general availability, the market certainly does seem to be edging towards Operator Connect as its preferred choice.
“The market and the customers themselves will be the ones that decide whether it’s Operator Connect or Direct Routing,” he said. “But at Pure IP, our experience is that we’re seeing fewer scenarios where Direct Routing is the option required. Operator Connect is at the forefront of an increasing number of conversations.”
from UC Today https://ift.tt/3HBt62G
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