Your team lives in Microsoft Teams. Messages, meetings, and project updates all flow through one place, except your phone system.
Every time someone needs to make an external call, they jump to a legacy desk phone or a clunky standalone app. Productivity takes a hit, IT manages more systems than necessary, and the full value of your Microsoft 365 investment is left on the table.
Operator Connect changes that by bringing PSTN calling directly into Microsoft Teams Phone through a certified telecom provider, with no extra hardware or complex setup. For businesses already running Teams, it’s a fast, low-friction way to unify communications, and adoption is growing fast.
Why Teams users are still missing voice calling (and how Operator Connect fixes it)
Your organization already runs on Microsoft Teams. It’s where chat, meetings, files, and even workflows come together. Yet surprisingly, most users aren’t making calls from within Teams itself. They still rely on desk phones or external calling apps, which directly impacts productivity.
Only a small fraction of Teams users enable PSTN calling, despite Teams Phone being available. While Microsoft now counts over 20 million PSTN-enabled Teams Phone users, that represents just a fraction of the platform’s 320 million+ Teams active users.
Operator Connect closes the gap, providing fast, seamless voice inside the platform people already live in. Bringing voice into Teams Phone with Operator Connect aligns your tools, simplifies management, and gives employees a consistent experience across desktop, mobile, and certified desk phones.
Related Content: What is Operator Connect for Microsoft Teams
Operator Connect solves real problems for IT and users
Businesses aren’t moving to Operator Connect for fun. They’re doing it because maintaining legacy voice systems is costly, complex, and unsustainable.
With Operator Connect, IT teams can:
- Retire physical infrastructure: Remove SBCs and PBXs from your environment, reducing maintenance and support demands.
- Provision numbers centrally: Assign and manage phone numbers directly in the Microsoft 365 admin center, without third-party portals.
- Standardize policies: Apply global calling policies and routing rules inside Teams to maintain consistency across locations.
- Monitor and improve quality: Use built-in Teams analytics for call performance and troubleshooting.
For users, the change is seamless. Voice calls become just another feature inside the Teams app they already use, whether on desktop, mobile, or a Teams-certified desk phone.
Related Content: Explore what’s possible with Operator Connect
Why delaying your move to Operator Connect costs more than you think
Keeping legacy PBX systems may feel safe, but the hidden costs add up fast. Hardware maintenance, vendor contracts, separate support teams, and on-premises upgrades create recurring expenses without delivering new value.
In fact, switching to a single-vendor approach for your phone system can reduce your total cost of ownership by 56%.
Switching to Operator Connect makes that cost reduction possible while improving agility.
IT leaders are making the move because it:
- Supports hybrid and remote workers with native mobile calling in Teams.
- Enables global number provisioning and multi-region coverage in minutes.
- Connects directly to Microsoft’s infrastructure through certified providers for greater reliability.
- Consolidates voice into your Microsoft ecosystem, reducing the number of vendors to manage and simplifying support.
Unlocking the full value of Microsoft Teams with Operator Connect
Operator Connect transforms Microsoft Teams into a single, unified communications platform.
With voice, video, messaging, and collaboration in one place, your business gains:
- One number across every device: Give employees a consistent identity whether they’re in the office, remote, or on the move.
- Centralized communication history: Unify voicemail, call logs, chat, and meeting records for a complete view of interactions.
- Streamlined vendor management: Retire legacy telecom contracts, consolidate billing, and reduce administrative overhead.
- Better adoption of Microsoft 365: The more capabilities you deliver inside Teams, the more value you extract from your existing licensing.
- Support for physical devices: Keep Teams-certified desk phones for roles and locations that need them.
Centralizing communications delivers measurable business value. According to Forrester’s Total Economic Impact™ study, organizations using Microsoft Teams see:
| 143% return on investment (ROI) over three years. | $14.3 million in total benefits for a 5,000-user organization. | 52 minutes of productivity reclaimed per employee, per week. |
|---|---|---|
143% return on investment (ROI) over three years.
$14.3 million in total benefits for a 5,000-user organization.
52 minutes of productivity reclaimed per employee, per week.
Pairing those gains with Operator Connect amplifies the impact, driving higher Teams adoption, reducing telecom costs, and simplifying IT management across the board.
Related Content: How to turn missed calls into revenue opportunities in Microsoft Teams
Partner with Momentum for a seamless move to Teams Phone with Operator Connect
Transitioning voice to Teams is as much about execution as it is about technology. The right partner delivers the benefits of Operator Connect while avoiding the delays, disruptions, and hidden costs that can derail a rollout.
Momentum is a certified Microsoft Operator Connect partner with the expertise, global reach, and project discipline to make the move simple:
- Seamless migration: From number porting to policy setup, we handle the details so your IT team can focus on higher-value priorities.
- Direct Microsoft integration: Connect your voice services straight into Teams through certified, geo-redundant infrastructure.
- Global coverage: Support for locations in 60+ countries with consistent quality and availability.
- Proven deployment process: Decades of experience implementing enterprise voice solutions with minimal downtime.
- Strategic alignment: We don’t just deliver a service — we help you map Operator Connect to your collaboration strategy for maximum ROI.
When you combine the ROI and productivity gains of Microsoft Teams with Momentum’s Operator Connect expertise, you get a unified communications platform that scales globally, simplifies IT, and empowers every user.
