Teams Phone Licensing

Microsoft 365 Business Voice 

M365 Business Voice was Microsoft’s SMB cloud telephony solution that included phone system, audio conferencing, and optional calling plan. The Business Voice SKU was deprecated on March 1st, 2022, in favour of Microsoft Teams Phone which was released in January 2022. Existing Business Voice customers were able to renew their subscriptions up until June 30th 2022, or use continue to use their licenses until the expiration date. At the end of the term, Business Voice customers must transition to the new Teams Phone licenses.  

Timeline: 

• January 2022 - New Teams Phone SKUs available to purchase via CSP. 

• 1st March 2022 – Business Voice no longer available to purchase.  
• 30th June 2022 – Last day to renew existing Business Voice subscriptions.

Why was Business Voice replaced? 

Microsoft made this change to consolidate the SMB and Enterprise offers. Instead of purchasing Business Voice for SMB customers (<300 users), and Teams Calling Essentials for Enterprise (>300 users), Teams Phone is suitable for both SMB and Enterprise. 

Business Voice vs Teams Phone 

The only feature difference between Business Voice and Teams Phone is that Business Voice included audio-conferencing, and Teams Phone does not. However – this is because as of March 1st 2022, Microsoft made audio conferencing available for all Teams-inclusive licenses via the $0/month Microsoft Teams Audio Conferencing with select dial-out to USA/CAN SKU.  

Moving from Business Voice to Teams Phone 

Since Business Voice subscriptions could renew until the end of June, you may still have customers using it. At the next renewal, or when you migrate the customer to NCE, you will need to transition the customer to the new Teams Phone licensing. This transition will not happen automatically, you must purchase and assign the new licenses before removing the Business Voice licenses. For guidance on how to move to Teams Phone, follow the steps below. 

1. Purchase the new licenses in the Dicker Data portal. 
   
   

The below table outlines which license to purchase based on the customers’ existing licenses.  

Note that Teams Phone is an add-on, which means the user must have a base license the includes Teams. When purchasing the license in the Dicker Data portal, make sure to toggle ‘show add-ons’.  

                 2 . Assign the new licenses to the users. 

Follow the instructions in this article to assign the licenses: Move from Business Voice to Teams Phone licenses - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn 

It’s important that when you unselect the Business Voice license, the Teams Phone license is selected BEFORE you click save.  If you remove Business Voice and save changes before Teams Phone is added, the user will lose the phone number assigned to them and will be deprovisioned.  

Microsoft Teams Phone 

Microsoft Teams Phone is available to purchase as a standalone add-on, or as part of Microsoft 365 E5.  

Calling Plan 

Teams Phone with Calling Plan is Microsoft's all-in-the-cloud voice solution for Teams users. With calling plan, Microsoft acts as the PSTN carrier. There are three types of calling plans: 

Domestic Calling Plan 

• Users can call numbers in the country/region they are assigned 

• Unlimited incoming minutes included 
• Outgoing minutes are included based on the license purchased (120/240/1200 minutes) 

International Calling Plan 

• Users can call numbers in the country/region they are assigned and internationally (see list of countries here) 
• Unlimited incoming minutes included 

• Outgoing minutes are included based on the license purchased (1200 domestic or 600 international, which ever is reached first) 

PAYG Calling Plan  

• Users can call domestic and international numbers 
• Unlimited incoming minutes included 
• No outgoing minutes included 

• Two PAYG options: 

• Pay-As-You-Go Calling Plan Zone-1 
• Pay-As-You-Go Calling Plan Zone-2 (choose for NZ users) 

For domestic calling, it goes off the location of the users license that is set in the M365 admin centre, so it’s important that it is set correctly.   

Users who have the same calling plan and are based in the same location, share a pool of minutes.  

Any additional calls over and above what’s included in the calling plan are charged on a per-minute basis. The same applies for international calls made by users on a domestic calling plan. PAYG calling must be set up to allow for pay-per-minute calling (more on this below). 

Setting up PAYG calling 

Setting up Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) calling is not as simple as just purchasing the PAYG calling plan license. Until PAYG is properly funded, users who have the PAYG calling plan won't be able to make outgoing calls.  

There are two ways to fund PAYG calling, based on the customers licensing model. 

Legacy CSP – Communication Credits 

For customers who are still on legacy CSP, communication credits are required for PAYG calling. Communication Credits is a pre-paid budget to support outgoing minutes and allows you to pay for a pool of minutes in advance to cover anticipated usage. You can either have a pre-paid balance or you can turn on auto-recharge, so when the balance drops below a certain threshold it will trigger a top-up with the recharge amount you’ve chosen.   

Communication Credits are purchased directly from Microsoft in the M365 admin centre.  

NCE – New Commerce Overage  

NCE allows partners to enable overage capabilities so customers can pay for their usage after it’s been consumed. There's no need for a pool of Communication Credits, instead the overage charges will be billed against an Azure subscription.  

Audio Conferencing  

On March 1st 2022, Microsoft made Audio Conferencing available for all teams-inclusive plans. A $0/month add-on, Microsoft Teams Audio Conferencing with dial-out to USA/CAN, needs to be added to enable the audio-conferencing capabilities. This SKU includes unlimited toll dial-in minutes and 60 dial-out minutes to US & Canada numbers. 

Paid audio conferencing subscription still available at reduced cost. It may still be required in scenarios where customers want to dial-out minutes to additional countries, as the paid subscription includes 60 dial-out minutes to 44 countries (Zone A countries listed here).  

Microsoft Teams Phone Resource Account licenses 

A resource account is required for every call queue and auto attendant that’s created in Teams. In the past every resource account that had a needed a number assigned to it required a Teams Phone Resource Account (previously called the Virtual User license). This is no longer the case, as now every resource account, regardless of whether it has a phone number assigned or not, requires the Resource Account license. 

Resource account licenses are free for all Teams Phone customers. Just by having a Teams Phone subscription the customer is automatically eligible for 25 resource account licenses. The customer is eligible for an additional resource account license for every 10 Teams Phone licenses they purchase. The resource accounts still need to be ‘purchased’ through the Dicker Data portal, though they are $0/month.