Belgium and Germany Microsoft Calling Plans (PSTN user phone numbers) Now GA for Cloud Phone System

[Deleted]

Good news, Germany and Belgium PSTN Calling plans for user phone numbers are now out of preview and generally available from Microsoft for Skype for Business Online Phone System (previously called Cloud PBX) from today (1st November). According to the Microsoft Teams Roadmap, these should also be available by the end of the year for Microsoft Teams. That brings us up to 9 counties generally available. Currently, there are no new countries in public preview.

Calling Plans is the name of the service where Microsoft provide your user phone numbers directly from the cloud, acting as your “PSTN carrier”.

For both Germany and Belgium it’s not fully automated through the Office 365 Portal, you have to send an email to the service desk to request numbers. This is the same for France, Ireland and Netherlands, some of those have been generally available for some time.

It looks like the documentation still needs updating, but you can find the full details here:

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Countries-and-regions-that-are-supported-for-Skype-for-Busi...

Pricing for calling plans and per minutes rates are here: https://products.office.com/en-us/skype-for-business/calling-plans#requirements

From: http://tomtalks.uk/2017/11/belgium-germany-microsoft-pstn-calling-plans-user-phone-numbers-now-avail...

[#2]

Thanks for this update. It's useful to know the expansion of these calling plans with GA and how it fits together.

[#3]

However, the really odd thing is that there have been no new territories entering public preview since March and the queue is now empty.  You would have thought that there would have been an accelerating number of territories entering the preview queue not the opposite. One can only hope that there is something "afoot" to bring new territories straight to GA or through a much shorter preview period. The whole of the EU in one hit would be a nice development. If it is going to be another 2 territories and a 9 month wait until GA, global, or indeed, simply EU wide, availability is going to be a very slow process.  Hopefully we will see a new version of the auto attendant soon as well because apart from the whole move to Teams escapade the overall capability growth of SfB seems to have flat-lined. I am sure that is not the intent so hopefully there will be some news on features and territories soon.

[#4]

Good Points.

There was an update the Cloud Call Queues and Auto Attendants today actually: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Skype-for-Business-Blog/Announcing-new-capabilities-in-Auto-A...

[#5]

Good to see the announcement about the new capabilities within Auto Attendant / Call Queues. Hopefully the ability to forward calls via sip to federated associates will also be added before too long. The ability to have CQ agents opt in or out from calls is a welcome addition. I note that this looks as if it will be implemented via a web interface. A good start but a little "clunky". The ability to see the CQ's I am a member of and quickly toggle membership on and off with a master (all CQs off - previous CQ's I was opted into back on) within the client (possibly part of the future Teams Client) would be good. I can see many scenarios where a person would want to remain contactable on an individual basis but quickly opt out of selected CQ's simply so they can concentrate upon the task in hand.  Simple example - a CQ for the maintenance dept of a company calls all maintenance staff. Staff member having responded to a call is now out on site attending to the issue. He needs to remain contactable on an individual basis, but doesn't want to be distracted by CQ's calls being routed to him until he has dealt with the current task. He is also a member of the site first aid team so he will remain a member of the internal "911" call queue - which calls all first aiders on site simultaneously.  

Hopefully there will also be some admin configurable rules such as last CQ member cannot opt out (or is notified that they are the last). Now that CQ's do not have to have a service number, but can be linked to a sip address it will make using CQ's for even quite small response groups quite easy.  Perfect for situations such as I need a nurse with X qualification as the second pair of eyes while I administer this controlled drug Y - the doctor doesn't need to know which nurse has which qualification he can just call the  Drug Y oversight call queue and all on duty nurses with the authority to act as the second pair of eyes for drug Y administration will get the call and thus the doctor can be confident of getting hold of a suitable person in short order. With no requirement for service numbers this sort of thing becomes very simple and all admin needs to do is ensure that the right people are in the respective call queues.