Five reasons to consider direct routing

Direct Routing allows Microsoft Teams users to create a truly seamless voice calling experience.

It enables users to work smarter by bringing together voice calling, chat, meetings, and collaboration. Here's five benefits of direct routing according to SIPPIO.

Cost savings

SIPPIO's research found that those using Direct Routing spend an average of $7.91 on PSTN connectivity compared to either $12 for Microsoft’s domestic plan, or $24 for its international calling offering. These costs don’t include procurement, maintenance, and management of SBCs, but they do show potential for broad savings for PSTN access compared with the fixed per-month fee associated with Calling Plan that includes a block of calling minutes that often go unused.

Phone number control

Direct Routing allows a company to maintain control of its phone numbers and dial plan rather than have to port them to Microsoft, often enabling faster migration to Teams Phone System by eliminating the time and complexity of number porting.

Ability to use multiple cloud providers

About 15% of companies in the study were found to use more than one calling platform, and many have their own on-premises or cloud-based contact centers. Direct Routing allows for fine-grained policy routing of incoming calls to multiple systems.

Geographic Reach

While Microsoft continues to expand Calling Plan availability, it still isn’t available everywhere, leading some international organisations to rely on Direct Routing for local calling in underserved markets.

Retaining existing SIP services

Many organisations have multi-year contracts with SIP providers. The ability to continue to support these SIP services removes a barrier to Teams Phone System adoption.

Find out more

Read more about SIPPIO's findings.