Telstra announces 3 User PSTN Calling Plans for Skype for Business Online and Microsoft Teams

Thanks to my friend Greig Sheridan for the Photo from the launch event.

The news is now public that Telstra will be offering user phone number plans for Office 365 Phone System, i.e. Skype for Business Online and Microsoft Teams. It looks like it’s initially just for Office 365 tenants homed in Australia.

This is a model where you buy Office 365 from Microsoft and buy your “user phone numbers and user minutes” i.e. Calling Plan, from Telstra. There is no on-premises hardware, this is a direct connection between Telstra and Office 365 on the service side/backend. Similar to the certified Audio Conferencing provider for Skype for Business Online. This is interesting, as it is a new model for Office 365/Skype for Business Online/Microsoft Teams for user minutes/user phone numbers.

It is different to the recently announced direct routing for Microsoft Teams (Canadian Thinktel being the first service provider to be announced on that model) , as the Telstra Calling plans for Office 365 are supported for Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams.

Three plans are available:

Plan	Plan details	Price Per User Per Month (ex GST)
Standard Calling	No included minutes, usage paid per minute	$8
Essentials Calling	Unlimited Local and National Long distance calling within Australia included.	$14
Premium Calling	Unlimited Local, National Long distance and calling to mobile within Australia included	$18

All packages include the following from Telstra:

• Annual Call Performance Analysis
• Voice Health Check Analysis
• Consulting Services User Adoption / Training

These are not well defined yet, but interesting as they are not something you get from Microsoft when buying their direct PSTN Calling Plans.

According to the slide you chose one plan across all users (which seems like a shame, as different users have different requirements). 12-month contract term then 12-month contract extensions.

The “Standard” plan is interesting as it’s pure pay per minute with zero included minutes, as it’s not an option Microsoft offer. Microsoft only offers bundles of minutes, the lowest bundle being 120 minutes, then pay per minute for additional minutes beyond that.

Telstra have their details and landing page for the service here: https://www.telstra.com.au/business-enterprise/solutions/collaboration-conferencing/cloud-collaboration/telstra-calling-365

Thanks, James Arber for the screenshot of it in action (you should follow him if you are interested in Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams), he has a great overview on his blog here: http://www.skype4badmin.com/telstra_calling_for_office365_announced/

Photo credit GeekEvangelist, thanks.