What you need to know
- Microsoft has new Teams Phone features available.
- These include CarPlay support, spam call identification, call transfers between devices, and much more.
- Teams Phone also has new features aimed at organizations that are still reliant on public switched telephone networks (PSTNs).
According to Microsoft, nearly 80 million people don't just use, but need Microsoft Teams Phone to amp up the quality of their calls. If that claim sounds outlandish, you can take it up with Microsoft's blog post. In the meantime, here are the new features being introduced to Teams Phone to help out those 80 million callers.
- You can transfer live calls between devices.
- Spam call identification.
- Apple CarPlay support so Siri or your vehicle can help you out with your calls.
- Call transcription and recording capabilities for 1-on-1 calls (goodbye notepads). This feature set will arrive in full by the end of 2021.
Beyond these items, Microsoft is also committed to public switched telephone networks (PSTNs) even though it states that Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is the wave of the future. Here's what PSTNs can look forward to from Teams Phone.
- "Operator Connect," which will allow operator-based PSTN services to easily connect with Microsoft Teams.
- Teams Calling plans now serve a wider range of markets, including Croatia, Latvia, Estonia, Slovenia, and Lithuania.
- The ability to bring your own contact center and utilize Microsoft's connect contact center program.
If all these features, capabilities, and service expansions have you excited, know that the list of updates is not done yet; Microsoft still has two more items to mention.
- Walkie-talkie functionality for desk phones arrives in October 2021.
- The "better together" experience continues to enhance functional synergy between the Teams client and Teams devices.
In the event you want a deeper dive into any of the above content, check out the Microsoft blog post linked at the very top of the article.
Microsoft Teams Phone is still expanding, and just like the standard Teams client, it's not slowing down anytime soon.
