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When connecting your Teams Phone to the outside world, Microsoft Teams Calling Plans may not be the best choice. Today, we’ll explain why by answering some common questions, highlighting a few key drawbacks, and introducing you to a much better option.

Let’s get into it.

First, Let’s Explain the Teams Phone Standard License

Before we talk about calling plans, we’ve got to talk about the Teams Phone license. A Microsoft Teams Phone Standard License is an add-on to your existing Teams License. It includes the basic features of a hosted telephone PBX service, such as cloud-based internal calling, caller ID, and call forwarding.

Notice that this doesn’t include external calls – only internal ones. You’ll need to upgrade to a bundle that includes a Microsoft Teams Calling Plan to make outside calls.

And here’s where you run into a few problems.

Why Microsoft Teams Calling Plans Hold You Back

While Microsoft Teams Calling Plans are the right choice for some businesses, they won’t fit them all. And we’re going to show you why.

First, they’ve got limited business phone features

Companies that use Teams Phone Subscriptions with Microsoft Calling Plans can enjoy basic features like:

• Basic auto attendants and call queues
• Call park and retrieve
• Cloud-based voicemail
• Group call pickup
• Simple call-forwarding rules

All of which are great to have. But there are other more advanced features you’ll need that are only available if you pay for an additional subscription. Or they just aren’t available at all, like automatic failover.

And this will make it harder for you to improve your productivity or boost the quality of your customer service.

Second, it can be complicated to set up

To get the most out of Teams Phone with a Calling Plan, you must configure the system properly, integrate it with your existing phone arrangement, and ensure all your users are set up correctly. It can be time-consuming and requires quite a lot of IT knowledge you may not have. And Microsoft’s support might not be able to help immediately, which can add to the frustration.

Plus, you must manage everything yourself via the Microsoft Administrator portal – a learning curve that could slow your team down until they get accustomed to it.

Third, call quality issues could last a whole lot longer

Microsoft isn’t a telecom company. They’re a software company who partners with “true” telecom providers to make their Calling Plans work. This setup means your call quality can vary depending on how well a given provider’s doing at any given moment.

One partner having trouble with their connectivity? Fuzzy connection for days. Another partner’s data center went down? Calls choppier than the sea around Cape Horn.

And because Microsoft doesn’t directly control their network, troubleshooting bad call quality is going to take them a while. Typically, Microsoft has to:

• Find out which partner had the issue
• Contact that partner asking them to address it
• Wait for the partner to respond
• Then find your ticket and update you

This entire process could take days and meanwhile you’re sounding like you’re making calls from the moon. Plus, if they finally get back to you, it might not be the correct answer. After all, their support team might not be as up-to-date on telecom protocols as a true carrier would be.

On the other hand, if you don’t have a Teams Calling Plan, but partner with FirstComm instead, you can just call us if you’re having issues, and we’ll implement a fix right away. Easy as pie.

Simple Connectivity and Expert Support at Lower Costs with FirstComm

Consolidating your communications into a single platform doesn’t have to be complicated. This is why FirstComm’s Teams Integration is easy to use, already connected to the PSTN, and full of the advanced features you need for one flat rate.

Our experts will handle everything for you—from setup and deployment to day-to-day administration. Think your Teams integration needs are too niche for us to solve? Think again. Give us a call and see what we can help you accomplish for less!