Question 1

How does Teams Phone work?

Accepted Answer

Teams Phone works by moving the job of a traditional phone system into the Microsoft 365 cloud, where a call-control service acts as the private branch exchange (PBX) that controls each call from the moment someone dials to the moment the call ends, all inside the Teams apps people already use.[1] Calls between two people in the same organization stay on the internet as encrypted data and never reach the public switched telephone network (PSTN), so internal calling carries no carrier toll.[1] Reaching an outside landline or mobile number takes two separate pieces: a Teams Phone license that switches on the calling features, and a PSTN connection that supplies real phone numbers and the path to the outside world.[1][2] That PSTN link can come from a Microsoft Calling Plan, an Operator Connect carrier, Teams Phone Mobile, or Direct Routing through your own session border controller, and one organization can use more than one at once.[2] After a user is licensed, given a number, and voice enabled, the cloud service sets up the call while the audio itself travels over the most direct network path available, secured with SRTP.[4][5]

Question 2

How do I choose a PSTN connectivity option for Teams Phone?

Accepted Answer

Answer six conditions before you rank Microsoft's four options, because each condition removes options instead of scoring them: the countries your users are licensed in, whether an existing carrier contract and its numbers have to survive the move, who on staff can run a session border controller, what your recording and regulatory rules require, whether any site has to keep calling during an internet outage, and what the carrier side adds to the Microsoft license.[1][4] Coverage usually settles it first, since Calling Plans are sold through a per-country lookup, Operator Connect and Teams Phone Mobile each need a certified operator serving the countries you deploy in, and Direct Routing carries no Microsoft country list because you bring the carrier yourself.[1][2][3][8] Two conditions name an option on their own: a site that must keep local PSTN calls up while its link to Microsoft is down needs Direct Routing with a Survivable Branch Appliance, and Indian phone numbers run through Operator Connect for India, where the Indian operator supplies a country-specific Teams Phone license even for users who already hold an E5 entitlement.[6][11] One tenant can hold as many of the integrations as you want and add them in any order, so the output of this exercise is usually an option per group of users.[1]

Question 3

What is the difference between Teams Phone and a Calling Plan?

Accepted Answer

Teams Phone and a Microsoft Calling Plan are two separate purchases that solve two different jobs, and most organizations that want full business calling buy both.[1] Teams Phone is Microsoft's cloud phone system, the per-user add-on license that provides private branch exchange (PBX) features such as auto attendants, call queues, and cloud voicemail plus the ability to dial regular phone numbers, but on its own it includes no minutes to the outside world.[1][4] A Microsoft Calling Plan is one of four ways to connect Teams Phone to the public switched telephone network (PSTN); it makes Microsoft your phone carrier and supplies the phone numbers and calling minutes.[2][3] Because a Calling Plan is an add-on to Teams Phone rather than a replacement for it, you buy the Teams Phone license first and then attach a Calling Plan, or buy the two together as a bundle.[2][4] Calls between Teams users in the same organization travel over the internet and need neither product, which is why the distinction only matters once you have to reach landlines and mobiles.[1]

Question 4

What Teams Phone license do I need?

Accepted Answer

To turn Microsoft Teams into a working phone, a user needs three things stacked together: a base Microsoft 365 or Teams subscription, a Teams Phone license (the entitlement Microsoft records internally as the Microsoft 365 Phone System application), and a way to connect to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) for calls outside your organization.[2][5] If your users are on Microsoft 365 E5 or Office 365 E5, the Teams Phone license is already included, so you add only a PSTN option; on E1, E3, or a Business plan, you buy a Teams Phone Standard add-on, listed by Microsoft at $10.00 per user per month.[2][3] Teams Phone on its own covers internal calls and PBX features such as auto attendants and voicemail, but it cannot dial a regular phone number until you attach a PSTN option like a Microsoft Calling Plan, Operator Connect, Teams Phone Mobile, or Direct Routing.[5][6] Microsoft also sells a Teams Phone with Calling Plan bundle, around $17.00 per user per month for a domestic plan in the US, UK, and Canada, or $13.00 for pay-as-you-go, which folds the license and Microsoft-carrier calling into one SKU.[3][4]

Question 5

How much does Teams Phone cost?

Accepted Answer

Teams Phone arrives as four separate charges, so the answer depends on how many of them you already pay: the base Microsoft 365 or Teams subscription each user needs, the Teams Phone entitlement, the PSTN connection that reaches numbers outside your tenant, and the minutes people talk.[1][2] A US tenant already on Microsoft 365 E3 adds external calling for 50 users at the Teams Phone with Calling Plan list price of $17.00 per user per month on an annual commitment, which is $850.00 a month and $10,200.00 a year on top of what it already spends.[12] Counted all-in, those same 50 seats run $39.00 for the E3 base license plus $17.00 for phone, so $56.00 per user per month and $33,600.00 a year.[12][13] Microsoft 365 E5 and Office 365 E5 include the phone system but not PSTN access, and Operator Connect, Teams Phone Mobile, and Direct Routing charges come from the operator's contract, so both of those setups need one more number before a total exists.[1][4]

Question 6

Do I need a Calling Plan with Teams Phone?

Accepted Answer

No, a Microsoft Calling Plan is one of four ways to connect Teams Phone to the public switched telephone network (PSTN), alongside Operator Connect, Teams Phone Mobile, and Direct Routing, and one tenant can run more than one of them at once.[1] Country availability usually settles the question before price does: of the 141 country and region pages Microsoft publishes for cloud voice, 33 answer Yes to whether Calling Plans can be purchased there, so organizations everywhere else reach the PSTN through an operator.[2][12] What every external-calling setup needs is a Teams Phone license on each user plus at least one PSTN connection, because the license grants the calling features and the right to use a connection while the connection supplies the numbers and the route; calls that stay between Teams users inside your own organization need neither.[1][6] In the United States, Microsoft lists Teams Phone Standard at $10.00 per user per month paid yearly and the Teams Phone with Calling Plan bundle at $17.00, which prices Microsoft's domestic PSTN component at $7.00 per user per month.[4]

Question 7

What is the difference between Direct Routing and Operator Connect?

Accepted Answer

Direct Routing and Operator Connect are two of the four ways to connect Microsoft Teams Phone to the public switched telephone network (PSTN), and the core difference is who owns and manages the connection to your phone carrier.[1] With Operator Connect, you pick a carrier from Microsoft's certified operator program, and that operator runs the session border controllers (SBCs) and the PSTN calling service for you, so you enable them in the Teams admin center and assign numbers without touching any voice hardware.[2][5] With Direct Routing, you bring your own carrier and procure, install, and manage a certified SBC yourself or through a provider, which lets you use almost any trunk and connect legacy PBXs and analog devices, at the cost of running that infrastructure.[3][4] Both models require a Teams Phone license on each user, and one tenant can run both at once, mixing them by region or by type of worker.[1][6] Operator Connect tends to fit organizations that want managed calling with little setup, while Direct Routing fits those that need a specific carrier, a legacy integration, or coverage where the other options are not sold.[1][3]

Question 8

Does a Teams Phone license include a phone number?

Accepted Answer

No. A Teams Phone license does not include a phone number on its own, because Microsoft treats the license and the number as two separate purchases.[1][3] The license entitles a user to the Microsoft 365 Phone System features and its private branch exchange (PBX) capabilities, plus access to whatever phone-network connection your organization has set up, while the numbers themselves come from a separate PSTN solution.[1][4] Microsoft states plainly that telephone numbers are not included with Teams Phone licensing and are acquired through the service provider that supplies your connection to the public switched telephone network (PSTN).[3] You add that connection through one of four options, a Microsoft Calling Plan, Operator Connect, Teams Phone Mobile, or Direct Routing, and the option you choose decides who allocates your numbers.[2] The main exception is a bundled license such as Teams Phone with Calling Plan, which pairs the license with a Microsoft Calling Plan that does provide a number and outbound minutes.[7]

Question 9

Can Teams Phone make and receive calls to landlines and mobile phones?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Teams Phone can place and answer calls to and from ordinary landline and mobile numbers, but only after two separate pieces are in place: a Teams Phone license assigned to the user, and a connection to the public switched telephone network, or PSTN, that supplies the phone numbers and the route to the outside world.[1][2] Calls between people inside the same organization run natively over the internet and never touch the phone network, so the license and the PSTN connection matter specifically for reaching external numbers.[1] Microsoft supports four ways to make that PSTN connection, and a Microsoft Calling Plan, Operator Connect, Teams Phone Mobile, or Direct Routing each let a voice-enabled user dial out and take inbound calls on a real phone number.[2] Microsoft's product page states plainly that Teams Phone lets you make and receive voice and video calls over the PSTN or an internet connection, from the Teams apps on a computer, a mobile device, or a certified desk phone.[5][6]

Question 10

What is Microsoft Teams Phone?

Accepted Answer

Microsoft Teams Phone is the cloud-based phone system, or private branch exchange (PBX), built into Microsoft Teams and the wider Microsoft 365 service, where it handles call control so an organization can run its business calling inside the Teams apps people already use.[1] Calls between Teams users in the same organization stay on the internet and never touch the traditional phone network, while a Teams Phone add-on license plus a separate connection to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) lets those users dial and answer regular phone numbers.[1][2] The license adds enterprise calling features such as auto attendants, call queues, cloud voicemail, call transfer, and external caller ID on top of the basic calling already included with Teams.[3] Microsoft offers four ways to connect Teams Phone to outside numbers: its own Calling Plan, Operator Connect, Teams Phone Mobile, and Direct Routing.[2] Teams Phone was previously named Phone System, and it succeeds Skype for Business Online, which Microsoft retired on July 31, 2021.[9]