Flexible communication solutions have steadily been adopted over the past couple years we have seen services such as Microsoft Teams grow to 40 million users.

Microsoft Teams became the collaboration tool of choice for 77+ million active users, nearly doubling in the space of 3 months and the trend does not look to be declining. Mainstream businesses have resisted this change,however the onset of the coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated the negative impact of having an immovable communications setup. Companies who have leveraged Microsoft Teams have had to quickly shift in culture and operations to implement work-from-home solutions but they are seeing the benefits. Out of the box, Microsoft teams provides a persistent chat interface with file sharing, online meetings, video conferencing and internal calling between clients. Installed on Desktop, Android and IOS, it allows a user to collaborate from anywhere, anytime.

Companies everywhere have taken the plunge and shifted to Microsoft Teams but are left scratching their heads wondering how to effectively deliver inbound calls from their legacy telephone system to this new setup. While they can collaborate more efficiently, they are still making calls on their mobile phones, ordering & configuring VPN phones or opening the company firewall to service a remote SIP or H.323 phone i.e. not a very secure or unified experience.

Companies are left with only two options.

1. Microsoft Calling Plans

2. Microsoft Direct Routing

Microsoft Calling plans come with an easy setup but at a cost, specifically for mobile at an excruciating 12 pence per minute. This does not allow for a gradual transition or a hybrid way of working with existing services. This leaves companies asking, what is Microsoft Direct Routing and how do I implement?

Microsoft Calling Plans are too expensive, what are the options for Microsoft Direct Routing?

Microsoft Direct Routing is a voice delivery mechanism created by Microsoft Teams which is similar to SIP Trunking over TLS and SRTP for media. You can’t use standard SIP trunking to deliver a call to MS Teams because Microsoft’s proprietary SIP signalling is different to standard SIP signalling. Microsoft also requires a certain make and model of certified Session Border Controller (SBC) to deliver the call into Microsoft Teams.

What is a Session Border Controller (SBC) and what are the benefits?

A session border controller is a voice firewall which provides standardised SIP messaging and protects voice networks from external threats such as toll fraud. SBC’s are a viable option for MSPs servicing large enterprises who want onsite hardware and are willing to pay the capex or MSPs with the technical voice expertise and in-house development teams. This takes time, investment and comes at a high risk, when perhaps it may not be a core focus.

If you do want to offer direct routing as an MSP, you would need to investigate Microsoft certified SBCs, what make/model (AudioCodes | Oracle | Ribbon | TE Systems), whether you install on customer sites, or run co-location space to effectively manage multiple customers. Following this, you must consider co-location redundancy, interoping legacy customer PBXs, ISDN and analogue equipment such as faxes & door entry systems.

The benefits of having equipment on a customer site is the ability to create custom configurations and providing a distributed non-single point of failure network, however cloud services also negate single point of failure using HA & multi-region failover.

Are there any other options if I want a more simple way to integrate Microsoft Direct Routing?

Standard Cloud Voice Services

A plethora of SIP Trunk providers have raced to add MS Teams to their portfolio, often without any additional features and built on a costly per user basis. If additional features are added they are normally bolted on from separate systems and ultimately becomes a very expensive way to operate. As an MSP you would need to consider enterprise features such as call recording, you would have to consider Disaster Recovery, Failover options, Legacy PBX migrations and how you would administer these features at a price a customer can afford. If you already have relationships with wholesale SIP trunking providers and your customers don’t need anything other than basic call routing, this solution could be a quick way to market.

Next Generation Cloud (CPAAS)

Communications Platform as a Service (CPAAS) is a cloud platform for developers to add real-time communication features to an application using API’s. VIVA has taken this one step further, we have integrated MS Teams and created a portal to allow MSP’s to administer communications in real-time. VIVA offers a complete communication solution with multi-tenant facilities, visual call flow designer, call recording, IVR, text to speech, speech recognition and more. You can use these features on their own, or in-line with Microsoft Teams or in conjunction with a PBX, the platform is completely flexible.

Summary

Lockdown has forced companies to innovate and, as restrictions are slowly released, businesses do not necessarily want to return to the old ways, instead they need to embrace permanent or fallback solutions as they have now experienced the benefits of remote collaboration tools for their business first-hand.

This gives rise to a unique opportunity for an MSP to ride this wave of change and take control of both IT and Voice services. MS Teams have certainly shaken the market, leaving Telecom VARs scrambling to add value as the balance of control starts to shift towards the MSP’s. CPAAS (VIVA for MSPs) should be a real consideration as they tip the balance towards the MSP further and are the only industry focussed solution on the market.