Operator Connect
Microsoft’s commitment to creating a best-in-class, modern calling experience begins with the deployment of Microsoft Teams Phone. Operator Connect provides you, the operator, with deeper integration into the Teams platform to enhance and streamline the Teams Phone experience around networking, provisioning, management, and reporting APIs. Doing this provides customers a simplified Teams Phone experience delivered by operators that has parity with Microsoft offerings. Through this partnership, Microsoft and operators can develop a deeper and more strategic relationship that takes Teams Phone to the next level by delivering higher-quality calling experiences to customers.
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Become an Operator Connect partner
For systems integrators, learn how to leverage Operator Connect
Enhancing the Direct Routing model for operators
Operator Connect provides an enhanced way for you to deliver Direct Routing to enable calling in Microsoft Teams.
Operator Connect offers can enhance the Teams Phone experience over standard Direct Routing.
Operator Connect | Direct Routing | |
---|---|---|
Program type | Programmatic approach to operator-provided calling | Not a program. Core functionality |
Interconnection | Microsoft Azure Peering Service (MAPS) for Voice | TLS/SRTP over Internet or MAPS |
Number provisioning | Provisioning through APIs to facilitate automation | “Limited” (through Powershell only) |
Teams Admin Center | Operator presence in Teams Admin Center | None |
Customer experience | Number visualized in the portal for provisioning and management | IT admin or operator needs to assign number and policies through PowerShell |
Data sharing | Call-detail record (CDR) and call quality dashboard (CQD) data provided to operators through APIs | CDR/CQD data can be retrieved tenant by tenant using delegated access |
Support/SLA | Operator Tier 1 Support; Operator-Microsoft model in place | Operator Tier 1 Support; Escalations through Microsoft 365 and/or Premier Support |
Management | Dedicated management capabilities in operator portal or API | Delegated admin or Teams role-based access control (RBAC) access required from customer |
Total cost of ownership | “As a service” model delivered by the operator | SBC owned and operated by the customer or hosted and managed by operator |
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Partner benefits
Operator Connect allows you to scale your Direct Routing service to provide a pure cloud-managed solution to your customers. Through Operator Connect, you can create automations to streamline provisioning, billing, and reporting. In addition, you can uncover go-to-market opportunities for existing and new customers.
Customer benefits
Bring your own operator
Customers can maintain their existing operator contracts and relationships, while providing users a modern and streamlined calling experience in Teams.
Simplify setup and management
Reduce provisioning time and management resource needs through a simplified experience in the Teams Admin Center.
Reduce costs
Operator Connect helps customers save on infrastructure and management costs by reducing the need to purchase, maintain, and manage equipment.
Enhanced support and reliability
Technical support and shared SLAs across Microsoft and operators improve support service, while direct peering powered by Azure creates a one-to-one network connection for enhanced reliability.
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Find qualified partners in the Operator Directory
Microsoft’s unique partnerships with operators enable us to jointly deliver superior products and services that help our customers reduce complexity, provide them more flexibility when it comes to choosing their connectivity services, and create confidence in their Teams Phone deployment and management.
Visit the Operator Directory to find qualified partners in your country.
Operator Connect Accelerator partner solutions
Operator Connect Accelerator partners help operators simplify, automate, and accelerate the onboarding and management of Operator Connect.
Accelerators can provide a variety of capabilities, depending on their offerings and operator needs, such as SBC as a service (SBCaaS), API Bridge for Operator Connect, OSS/BSS integration, admin, customer and/or reseller portals, and in some cases network as a service, too. Accelerators might also allow operators to move the associated integration costs from capital expenditure (CAPEX) to operational expenditure (OPEX), and to leverage existing Operator Connect libraries that provide deeper integrations. This enables simpler operations with less associated cost and reduced complexity of handling relevant infrastructure.
We have worked with a few key partners to provide this differentiated value to all our operators to enable a simpler and automated way to offer Operator Connect to their customers, in their markets. Current Operator Connect Accelerator partners are AudioCodes, NUWAVE, PingCo, Ribbon, and SIPPIO.
Watch the following videos to learn more about the services these partners can provide.
AudioCodes
AudioCodes Live Platform streamlines Operator Connect operations with seamless voice integration, automated onboarding, management tools, and value-added calling and CX services.
NUWAVE
Learn how NUWAVE pioneers as an innovative Operator Connect Accelerator provider, empowering global Microsoft Teams Operator Connect and Direct Routing for optimized service management.
PingCo
PingCo highlights the challenges service providers face in today's rapidly evolving Teams Phone market and showcases how TCAP is the solution you've been waiting for.
Ribbon
Ribbon Connect is a carrier-grade automation solution that accelerates time to market and reduces research and development (R&D) expenses – one platform offers multiple services.
SIPPIO
SIPPIO accelerates sales velocity and time to revenue, and increases margins while enhancing customer experience and eliminating activation backlogs.
Partner solutions for operators
In addition to our Operator Connect Accelerator partners, there are several partners building platforms to help operators in key areas such as automation, customer journey, migrations, and customer portals. Following are some of our key partners who are also innovating in this space.
Entergrade
Elevate your Teams Phone services with TeamsBoss by Entergrade Solutions. Optimize workflows, reduce costs, and empower your team with seamless integrations.
SOFTEL
Discover SOFTEL's PSA and how it can streamline Microsoft Teams telephony with easy management and deliver seamless, scalable solutions in our quick video guide! No PowerShell skills needed.
VOSS
VOSS provides a central point of control, automation, and insight into your unified communications (UC) estate, helping you get the best out of your communications infrastructure.