Teams Phone Mobile

What is Teams Phone Mobile?

Because of some confusion I see with my customers about what exactly this is, my method in answering this question is to start with what Teams Phone Mobile is *not*.

It is not the Teams app/client that gets installed on your mobile device.

The Teams (on Mobile) app is a client that supports all the Teams features on a mobile device, while “Teams Phone Mobile” is one of the platform’s most interesting PSTN calling plan options.

If the product name was written as a summarized description, it might be written out something like “Teams Phone Mobile (Operator) Calling Plan Whereby a Single Number is Ubiquitous Between a User’s Native Mobile Device and Microsoft Teams.”

(but that would yield a ridiculous acronym... ;)        

If you’ve been in the industry awhile, the feature looks remarkably like “Single Number Reach” (advertise one telephone number, and when called, that inbound call rings on all of your devices).

But, it’s not exactly that either…

With Single Number Reach, you are essentially invoking a forward protocol on an inbound call to other PSTN numbers.

Whereas, with a Teams Phone Mobile calling plan, only one PSTN number is required, to ring all your devices in their native form.

And what does it do?? Its purpose is to provide more flexibility in how IT Admins deliver and manage PSTN services and how mobile Teams users conduct and manage their business phone calls.

The number works on all of the Teams clients (on any device), and it also rings the SIM/eSIM in the user’s native mobile device.?

It is a true achievement of Fixed Mobile Convergence .

Why should you consider it?

Streamlined user experience, for one.

For example:

Will the call that is ringing into your mobile phone’s native phone app also ring in your Teams app on other devices?

Yes.? And if you answer it on your mobile phone’s native phone app, Teams will recognize this and show your presence as “In a call.”

If an end user does not answer their mobile phone’s inbound call, and the caller leaves a voicemail, will that voicemail be accessible via the Teams client?

Yes.? And you will see synchronized call history in your mobile phone’s native dialer that matches call history in Teams.

When the user makes a call with their mobile device’s native dialer, can they elevate that call into a Teams call and turn it into a Teams meeting?

Yes.

Are these the only reasons to consider Teams Phone Mobile??

Not even close!

There are so many end-user, IT admin, and company benefits, it can be puzzling to understand why Teams Phone Mobile calling plans are not making a bigger scene across the industry.? Perhaps this is because the benefits are not fully understood?

Really... WHY should you consider it?

Aside from great user benefits, here are some of my favorite justifications for taking a closer look at a Teams Phone Mobile calling plan.

1.????? Potential cost savings*

This is where a Telecom Manager can flex their value-image with cost-conscious executive sponsors.? By targeting (and reducing) the duplicate recurring costs of 1.) a landline expense for your enterprise PBX user plus 2.) the expense of your enterprise cellular subscription (or a corporate BYOD stipend) to the same user, a Telecom Manager can orchestrate a plan that reduces overall PSTN spend.?

The key place to start: Identify users who have both a landline number for their office *and* a corporate mobile number (or BYOD stipend).

Why subscribe/pay for both, now that you can deliver one number with a Teams Phone Mobile calling plan?

?*Mileage may vary depending on comprehensiveness of cost analysis. For example, in addition to reducing landline minutes and numbers, don’t forget to consider reduction in overall traffic that can help reduce PSTN access costs (e.g., number of concurrent SIP trunks) and even potentially reducing SBCs to manage.

Many customers are seeing new PSTN options with Microsoft Teams from tel-co partners that amount to significant cost savings. Creating an architectural model that prescriptively *combines* Teams Phone Mobile (for mobile users) with Operator Connect (for non-mobile workers) is a trend that is gaining steam with favorable results.

If there is any executive takeaway from this article, it would be to conduct a Teams Phone Mobile pilot *and* an initiative that evaluates how Microsoft's unique tel-co / operator partners can reduce recurring operational spend for PSTN access & services.        

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2.????? Teams Phone Mobile calling plans can be leveraged in BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) scenarios.?

The simplest (and most secure) deployment of Teams Phone Mobile is via company issued mobile devices.? While I am an advocate for company issued devices that clearly secure business boundaries from personal usage (and vice versa), a company does not have to scrap their existing BYOD policy to employ this new calling plan.?

Like any other mobile carrier issuing virtual SIMs for secondary lines, Teams Phone Mobile calling plans can be issued by a Mobile Operator via an eSIM, which can be used in most modern smart mobile devices that support a secondary mobile number.

The only requirement for the enterprise end user would be to unlock their device and supply their IMEI number.? With these prerequisites met, your company’s Mobile Operator Admin can have your Mobile Operator generate an eSIM that can be provisioned in the BYOD user’s device.?

For example, I have T-Mobile for my Personal line.? My employer issued me an eSIM from Verizon for my corporate/Teams phone number, via Verizon's Teams Phone Mobile calling plan.

I added the company-provided eSIM to my mobile device, and now my Verizon/corporate number associated with that eSIM rings natively to my cellular phone – while also simultaneously ringing to my Teams apps.

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Why may I want to have Teams business calls on my mobile device’s native phone app instead of via the Teams mobile client?

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3.????? Calling that works.

Have you ever been on a VoIP call from one of your mobile apps and wish it was as *reliable* as the mobile device's native phone app?

Background:

A mobile phone is transmitting native voice calls and data (for everything else) over the provider’s ethernet network. A mobile’s native voice call is VoIP just like VoIP in the Teams app voice call. But because mobile operators want you to have a good call quality voice experience with their phone calls, they prioritize the VoIP traffic from calls made with your device’s native phone app, whereas the VoIP data transmitted from any other app (Teams or otherwise) will not be prioritized (app data is classified as ‘best effort’).?

?As such, there are cases where, even though it might be desirable to take Teams phone calls in the Teams mobile app, it could be more practical to force that phone call to take place via the mobile device’s native phone app (so that the mobile operator prioritizes the VoIP transmission and offers the best quality experience).

Benefit:

Directing business phone calls to take place on the mobile device's native phone app can be beneficial for workers who are trying to do company business on the road or on a job site where the cellular signal is low or contentious, allowing the prioritized transmission to improve the phone call experience for the worker.

Teams Admins can set Global (or custom) Mobility policies, such that the users always process calls in the Teams Mobile app, always process calls in the mobile device’s native dialer, or they can allow the user to decide for themselves (user controlled).

With a ‘user controlled’ policy, the end user can select their preference for how incoming calls are processed in the Teams mobile app’s Settings --> Calling --> Teams Phone Settings --> Incoming call settings.

4.????? Exponential service / up-time resiliency

If an organization’s network is down, cell phones can still use cellular service to make and receive calls.?

Inversely, if the cellular network is down (or has poor cell signal), phone calls can still be made over the internet with the Teams client.? In either case, it’s always the same working phone number.

Teams Phone Mobile calling plans on Microsoft Teams may be the most reliable service-up-time solution on the planet.        

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5.????? Preservation of your business asset

With a Teams Phone Mobile calling plan, a company that supplies a PSTN number to an employee will maintain ownership of that business number.? No more scenarios where users take their mobile number with them when they leave the company (and hence, the organization’s access to clients who are still calling that ex-employee’s mobile phone number).

?Whether the employee is using a company-issued device or BYOD, the company preserves the Teams Phone Mobile number that was used by the ex-employee, and the number can be reassigned or redirected to preserve continuity of business calls made to that number.

Additionally, like other Teams calling plan options, outbound calls via Teams Phone Mobile can be configured to appear as if they are coming from your organization to avoid exposing users’ personal mobile numbers externally.

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6.????? Calls on mobile device’s native dialer still follow Teams compliance policies

Because the phone call is routing through Teams, your organization can still extend Call Logging, Call Recording (and retention) policies, and Calling Permissions (e.g., international, long distance), even for calls made with the mobile device's native phone app.

And like all Teams certified PSTN operator solutions in the U.S., emergency calling / screening service is supported.

This is a solution that introduces a new ability to centralize business compliance across all the methods by which employees conduct business phone calls on your company's behalf.

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How is the architecture of Teams Phone Mobile provisioned?

It’s simple:?

1. Your Teams IT Admin approves an integration between your Teams tenant and the Mobile Operator of your choice (the Mobile Operator / partner who is providing the Teams Phone Mobile calling plan).

Microsoft does not charge for this Teams Phone Mobile Calling Plan.? All that is required from Microsoft is that the user has Teams and a Teams Phone or E5 license.

2. Your Mobile Operator Admin works with the chosen Mobile Operator to provision the targeted SIM/eSIM with the Teams Phone Mobile capability.

This effectively amounts to the mobile operator simply modifying the routing rule for the mobile number (instead of routing directly to the SIM/eSIM/mobile device, the Mobile Operator points the call to Microsoft, where Microsoft provides routing logic that sends the call to the Teams app and the mobile operator network).

Mobile Operators may require an additional monthly surcharge (on top of the existing cellular service for that user’s mobile device) for supporting this modified routing logic.

(Speculation: With more mobile operators understanding the wave of market share they can capture with this solution, expect more operators to enter the market, and expect the 'redirect surcharge' to become competitive. Perhaps even waived with larger customer footprints?)

Hopefully these points bring some fidelity (and some points of justification) to why Teams Phone Mobile is worth a second look.

Try a pilot to delight your users, your administrative level of effort, and your budget.

Think of a landscape where you prescriptively assign Calling Plans based on persona. A service catalog that aligns users with either:

• Teams Phone Mobile (for mobile / field workers)
• Traditional (Operator Connect, DRaaS, MSFT Calling Plan) (for non-mobile knowledge workers)
• Shared Calling (for everyone else (my thoughts on that here, (7) Rethinking Shared PSTN | LinkedIn))

Imagine this as your opportunity: Microsoft Teams is the Phone System that supports innovative PSTN solutions that can also yield significant cost-reduction benefits.

Plan for Teams Phone Mobile - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn

Teams Phone Mobile Videos on YouTube:

Intro: https://youtu.be/aXT8yh6ptzY?si=xtvcfbu1qFV7I-RC

How to use: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPylMgiDSEg

Uplift a call to Teams: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xtxt-D0FEuk

Transfer a call: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ect632fIdU0

Integrate compliance recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5plLtOqXScA

Call history, voicemail, and presence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEhbbzIGcKQ