Each month, over 17 million users worldwide rely on Teams Phone for smart, seamless, and secure communication and collaboration. As we add to these capabilities, we’re focused on providing flexibility and choice, expanding the availability of Teams Phone to new markets.
Microsoft has partnered with local operators to give Teams customers with operations in India additional choice to enable calling capabilities in Teams. We are excited to share that new Teams Phone-powered solutions from Airtel, Tata Communications Limited, and Tata Tele Business Services are now generally available. Leveraging the Operator Connect platform, these three operators have developed and will sell and support full-featured telephony solutions for Teams users in India, in compliance with local market regulations.
Increased choice and flexibility
These new partner offerings provide Teams customers in India:
- Easy and fast provisioning: Connect to your operator's PSTN services in minutes and enable cloud-calling capabilities for your teams, without the need for any additional hardware or software.
- Solutions that are simple to manage: Experience clear calling and enhanced reliability with proactive monitoring and automated system optimization along with the efficiency of a single admin console.
- Local support and billing: Work with your local operator for support and billing, and leverage their expertise and experience in the Indian market.
- Full-featured calling: Access all the voice features that Teams Phone offers, such as call queues, auto attendants, voicemail, call park, call transfer, and .
- Compliance with local regulations: These partner-provided solutions enable you to deploy calling capabilities in Teams in compliance with local regulations in India.
What are the differences between Operator Connect and the current Direct Routing solution in India?
The current Direct Routing solution Microsoft offers in India is a hybrid telephony solution that requires you to deploy and manage Session Border Controllers (SBCs) either on-premises or in the cloud to connect to the public switched telephone network (PSTN). With Direct Routing, you can make and receive calls from Teams when connected to your corporate network.
The new cloud-based partner solutions do not require you to deploy or manage any SBCs, as the operators handle the Direct Routing connection for you. These solutions also give you access to an expanded set of Teams Phone capabilities, while simplifying the process of enabling calling for users in India, and allowing you to benefit from the technology and market experience these partners bring.
Get started with Teams Phone-powered solutions in India
Take these steps to enable your users in India with a Teams Phone-powered calling solution from one of these partners:
1. Verify you have a qualifying Microsoft Teams license
2. Contact your preferred operator to for their respective solution to enable Teams Phone capabilities
3. Assign licenses and phone numbers to your users and configure your voice policies and call routing settings as needed through the Teams admin center
4. Start making and receiving calls using your chosen operator’s service through Microsoft Teams
Explore the following resources to learn more about Operator Connect and Teams Phone:
