Direct Routing for Teams Will Leverage On-Premises PSTN

• Direct Routing will enable Teams customers to use existing service providers for voice calling.
• The service could help customers who want to use Teams for voice calling but cannot adopt Microsoft’s hosted calling service.
• Direct Routing can coexist with on-premises phone systems and Skype for Business Server to ease migration to Teams.
• In most cases, Direct Routing will require new hardware from a short list of certified vendors.

Direct Routing, expected for preview in June 2018, will provide on-premises public switched telephone network (PSTN) connectivity for Teams. Direct Routing is similar in concept to the Skype for Business Cloud Connector Edition software, but Direct Routing will run only on appliances from select Microsoft partners.

Bridging the Gap to Hosted Telephony

Direct Routing aims to bridge a gap in Microsoft’s telephony offerings for Teams.

Microsoft offers hosted phone services for the Skype for Business Online and Teams communications technologies, including Phone System (formerly Cloud PBX) for private branch exchange (PBX) capabilities and Calling Plan (formerly PSTN Calling) for connectivity to the PSTN. However, customers might not be able to migrate to Microsoft phone services, particularly Calling Plan, for the following reasons: