Audio Conferencing extended to Microsoft Team and pay-per-minute offering added for more options

This week at Ignite, we are excited to officially announce a few updates to the Audio Conferencing (formally PSTN Conferencing) capabilities in Office 365 which have expanded confernecing scenarios for more Office 365 users and increased its availability to more Office 365 products.  These updates include:

• Audio Conferencing is now Available in Microsoft Teams in Public Preview
• Audio Conferencing pay-per-minute available starting October 1^st
• PSTN Conferencing & PSTN Consumption renamed to Audio Conferencing & Communications Credits

Attending Ignite? If you are here at ignite this week, we recommend a few sessions for you to learn more about meetings and Audio Conferencing capabilities in Office 365:

• Adding Audio Conferencing services in Office 365 to your meeting experiences with Neal Deason

Wednesday, September 27 3:15 PM - 4:00 PM

With Audio Conferencing, you add remote users to your online meetings with dial-in audio conferencing. In this session, we review the Audio Conferencing services features and demo how to successfully set up meeting organizers with dial-in numbers in 90+ countries and 400+ cities in the world in minutes!

• Understanding meetings in Microsoft Teams, with Amey Parandekar

Thursday, September 28 9:00 AM - 10:15 AM

Meetings are an integral part of collaboration with Microsoft Teams. Learn how Microsoft Teams allows you to meet with your colleagues with rich collaboration features so that you can make the most of your meeting time.

The following is an update you will hear this week at Ignite:  

Audio Conferencing in Public Preview Microsoft Teams. First, we've expanded Audio Conferencing (formally PSTN Conferencing) to support Microsoft Teams meetings.  Users who are enabled for enabled Audio Conferencing will automatically see dial-in instructions added to their Microsoft Teams meetings. 

The Audio Conferencing service in Office 365 can be enabled for any user of E1 or E3 with the add-on Audio Conferencing pay-per-minute offering (details below), a standalone Audio Conferencing subscription, or any user enabled with E5.

There are no changes the existing coverage of Audio Conferencing as a result of this change. The service will continue to be supported in 90+ countries, 400+ cities, and 44 IVR languages.

For more information on Microsoft Teams and Audio Conferencing, read the Meetings & Calling in Microsoft Teams support article and watch the Skype for Business Broadcast Series: Ep. 50 What's new with PSTN Conferencing.

Audio Conferencing Pay-Per-Minute available October 1^st. Second, starting October 1^st, we will expand the Audio Conferencing services to Volume License (EA, EAS, EES, and GCC only) customers with users assigned an Office 365 Enterprise E1 or E3 subscription. These users will be able to leverage Audio Conferencing in their scheduled meetings and customers will be billed on a per-minute basis for each inbound or outbound call placed by each attendee during a scheduled meeting.  This option allows tenants to enable all or a subset of users with a built-in audio conferencing experience Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business meetings, without the E5 or the standalone Audio Conferencing subscription.  Pay-per-minute rates vary for toll or toll-free call and by destination; it also requires Communications Credits to be enabled by tenant. 

This offering can also be used in conjunction with this subscription offerings, for example you can have some users enabling Audio Conferencing pay-per-minute and some users enabled with a monthly subscription of E5. This enables more flexibility in pricing for customers who don't need all users on a subscription basis.  For more information on Audio Conferencing rates, you can download rate tables by country, currency, and rate type for both the pay-per-minute and subscription offerings.  The pay-per minute option is available to all Audio Conferencing Sell-To countries excluding Brazil, Russia, South Korea, and Taiwan. 

For more information on updates on Audio Conferencing, including other preview features, watch the Skype for Business Broadcast Series: Ep. 50 What's new with PSTN Conferencing and review Countries/regions that are supported for Audio Conferencing. 

Renaming PSTN Conferencing & PSTN Consumption Billing. Last, but not least, we are announcing is the renaming of both PSTN Conferencing to Audio Conferencing and PSTN Consumption Billing to Communications Credits starting October 1.  These new names were chosen to be more descriptive and clearer to both users and administrators of the services. The new names will be reflected in both customer billing and the Office 365 admin portal. 

Both services will continue to work the same way the same and the changes will have no effect on the operations of Audio Conferencing or Communications Credits.

For more information and demo Audio Conferencing or Communications Credits, read and Countries/regions that are supported for Audio Conferencing and Calling Plans and What are Communications Credits support articles.