Microsoft Audio Conferencing for Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Office 365 Administrator Always find it difficult to justify the Audio-Conferencing Billing for the Microsoft Audio Conferencing Services. The Audio-Conferencing services has been running since Skype for Business Online and now the same is be rolled into as an Integration into Microsoft Teams as well.

What is Microsoft Teams Audio Conferencing Services?

All the users can join the Microsoft Teams Meeting using different Microsoft Teams Client on the Desktop Client, Mobile Client, Web Client on all the different platforms. What if the user trying to connect to the meeting has a bad internet connectivity? Or do not have Teams Client on the device which they are using.

Hence Microsoft has now offered Microsoft Teams Audio Conferencing Services wherein the users can join the Microsoft Teams Meeting using the PSTN Conferencing Services and participate in the Microsoft Teams Meeting using the PSTN Audio  

Who can purchase the Microsoft Audio Conferencing Services?

All the customers who have Microsoft Enterprise Plan E1 and E3 needs to add an Audio-Conferencing Add-on to existing SKU and utilize the services. For Microsoft Enterprise Plan E5 Audio-Conferencing SKU is by default included in the services

For the users with Microsoft Office 365 Business Premium and Microsoft Office 365 Business Essential can also buy Audio Conferencing Services as an Add-on to the services.

Did we ever notice the Audio Conferencing Numbers?

Since the Audio-Conferencing Services for both Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams is same the Numbers provisioned by Microsoft is also same for both the services. The only thing that differs is the Conference Bridge which is generated for the different meetings

What is Dial-Out Feature in Microsoft Audio Conferencing Services?

With the Audio Conferencing Services the Enterprise customer also get a feature for 60 minutes of Dial-Out from the Microsoft Audio Conferencing Services per user. This 60 minutes is pooled on the Tenant Level let’s say if you purchase 10 Licenses the customer gets 600 pooled minutes monthly. This 600 minute needs to be consumed monthly and cannot be carried forward to the next month.

The only difference in the service would be Dial-Out Feature is not available for the Microsoft Office 365 Business Premium and Microsoft Office 365 Business Essential customers.

What if I consume all my Dial-Out Minutes will my Dial-Out Feature Stops?

Yes, that’s correct once the complete tenant’s pooled minutes are consumed the dial-out feature gets stopped. Now the interesting feature Office 365 Global Admin can restrict who can dial-out from the Microsoft and who cannot dial-out from the Microsoft Teams Audio Conferencing Services.

Communication Credit is an additional feature wherein the customers can add-on Prepaid Balance which can be used per minute basis for dial-out to specific countries. The rates are fixed, and we can always calculate the numbers of minutes we have been billed from the Office 365 basis on the usage. All the billing and the enterprise admin can be notified if the Communication Credit balance is going beyond the threshold limit.   

Which is the Zone A Countries where Microsoft Teams Audio Conferencing Dial-Out Feature is available?

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States.

How do I the monitor the dial-out minute pool in my organization from office 365?

You can monitor the usage against your dial-out minute pool in the “legacy” Skype for Business Admin Center. In the Microsoft Teams Admin Center, navigate to Legacy portal > Reports > PSTN Minute Pools