PingCo is the latest partner to be approved by Microsoft as an Operator Connect Accelerator partner. In this blog, I spoke to Dan Pearson, CEO at PingCo, to look at PingCo’s TCAP platform to see what they bring to the table for customers and telecom operators.
About Operator Connect and Operator Connect Accelerator
Operator Connect is an integration/certification between Microsoft and telecom operators that enable the telecoms operator to provide PSTN phone numbers and services for Microsoft Teams. Microsoft Teams customers can view the services available from Operator Connect operators directly in the Teams Admin Center and manage and assign Operator Connect provided numbers to users.
The Operator Connect program has particular technical and commercial requirements. Operator Connect Accelerator is a program that allows select approved Microsoft partners to provide software and services to telecom operators enabling them to accelerate their onboarding to Operator Connect and provide ongoing support/services/infrastructure between the telco and Microsoft.
PingCo TCAP – Teams Automation Calling Platform
Founded in 2011, PingCo offers their “TCAP”, Teams Calling Automation Platform as a cloud SaaS (Software as a Service). With the same philosophy as API automation services like Zapier, they offer over 150 different API triggers that work to interconnect Telco systems with Microsoft APIs for Operator Connect. Their API platform provides “triggers”, zero code integrations, to SBCs and operator back-end systems, OSS/BSS for onboarding, billing, credit checking, customer management, etc.
TCAP will support any certified SBC vendor or even a combination of vendors for a single operator. They also offer automation for Direct Routing provision and management and other SIP trunk-based platforms.
PingCo also offers Microsoft certified SBC vendors as a cloud service if operators prefer to consume the SBCs as part of the service. TCAP is supported on public or private clouds, even physical servers the operator runs if they choose, but always a true CI/CD SaaS. They are also working towards providing Operator Connect Mobile integrations.
Automating the end-to-end Microsoft Teams Operator Connect customer journey
Beyond just integrating with Microsoft to provide numbers and route calls, PingCo’s TCAP provides a self-service portal for end customers. Dan believes customers should be able to onboard to an operator connect provider via a web portal experience in under 10 minutes.
That allows operators to deliver a completely automated and self-service end to end customer experience.
This portal-based self-service model is very much the vision of how Microsoft sees customers working with operators.
TCAP is offered commercially on a pure consumption model with no up-front project costs for setup or integration. Pricing is from 60 cents per phone number per month to the operator.
PingCo has onboarded several customers using TCAP with some impressive partnerships to be announced in the coming weeks. For more information check out TCAP here.
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