Operator Connect Will Expand Availability of Teams Calling

• Operator Connect will enable managed PSTN phone service in Teams in more regions than is possible today.
• Customers may be able to leverage their existing telephone operators without additional on-premises infrastructure.
• Operator Connect Conferencing will allow customers to use Teams conference dial-in numbers from operators other than Microsoft.

Operator Connect and Operator Connect Conferencing, announced in March and expected in preview in mid-2021, will allow customers to leverage public switched telephone network (PSTN) carriers (which Microsoft calls operators) for calling services in Teams without the on-premises infrastructure required by Direct Routing, Microsoft’s current solution for connecting Teams to utilizing external operators. Operator Connect will provide operator-managed calling infrastructure and could enable customers to leverage their existing operator contracts and use Teams voice calling in more geographic regions than are serviced by Microsoft’s current offerings.