Microsoft Teams Direct Routing Now Generally Available

In an earlier post, I covered off on the configuration of Direct Routing for Microsoft Teams when using a Ribbon SBC Edge appliance. At that time, the service had just entered public preview and was not quite ready for production deployment. With last week’s announcement, this is no longer the case: Direct Routing for Microsoft Teams is now Generally Available!

In the official announcement, Microsoft covered off on a couple of different deployment scenarios. The first (as already covered off during the public preview) is a customer deployed scenario, where SBC infrastructure is internally hosted, and is used to support Direct Routing for a single Office 365 Tenant. The second scenario I found of more interest: partner deployed scenarios:

With this announcement, we now have another way to enable telephony services in the cloud for Microsoft Teams: Direct Routing via carrier provider managed infrastructure an organisation does not need to manage themselves, and can purchased as a service from a supported provider.

Note that, as opposed to Microsoft (or Telstra if you’re in Australia) Calling Plans, Direct Routing lights up calling capabilities within the Microsoft Teams client only. Calling Plans have the advantage of enabling calling capabilities for both Skype for Business Online and Microsoft Teams environments at the same time.

At time of writing, the following providers have tested hosted Direct Routing in their environments and will be providing initial offerings:

• BezeQ International
• BT
• Cellip
• Nuwave Communications
• Orange Business Services
• Swisscom
• TATA
• Telekom Deutschland
• Telenor
• Thinktel
• West

Damien Margaritis