Adding credit to TEAMS for consumer PSTN calls

[Rigo]

This guy used to use paid Skype credits to ring family on landline phones in some east european country.
When Skype converted to Teams he was able to keep using the remnants of his subscription which has now exhausted.
For the life of me I couldn't find how to replenish the account so he could call his relatives.
There doesn't appear to be an option to do it unless it's a corporate account?

 

[britechguy]

I don't know the answer to your Teams question, but a possible solution outside that could be Google Voice, depending on what the terms of service are in Australia.

In the US and Canada, you can make international calls using Google Voice for a very low cost, though you buy credits to do so in advance.

 

[Sky-Knight]

I had to do some digging on this one...

Microsoft Teams Phone is a paid addon, and you have to use one of those paid addons before you can even apply credits.

But there's a rub, Teams Phone addon requires a PAID version of Teams. That is to say, you need an M365 Subscription. In this case you'd use M365 Personal or Family, then pair it up with one of the Teams Phone plans here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/microsoft-teams-phone#Pricing

My challenge? I cannot find a direct reference in the documentation for this anymore. Honestly, it's a limited use case, if you're trying to contact family internationally, it's vastly less expensive to just get everyone on Teams Free, then you can connect over Teams for... well... free. It's explicitly the connection to the PSTN that gets expensive, and given the costs involved your customer is going to be vastly better off with just about any other dedicated VoIP provider to fill that role if it's demanded.

 

[GTP]

What about Signal? Free, encrypted and you can call anyone else on Signal.
If they don't care about Microsoft "listening in" then go the teams route.

 

[Sky-Knight]

What about Signal? Free, encrypted and you can call anyone else on Signal.
If they don't care about Microsoft "listening in" then go the teams route.

So... I have to correct this.

Teams has end to end encryption available on all direct calls, so... yeah Microsoft isn't listening in to your conversations. Also, Signal has the same metadata, and presents the same risk. I love Signal, but this isn't how Signal provides superior privacy to its user relative to Teams, and while I agree it is a more private platform it's also a decidedly less secure one. That lack of an audit trail means non-repudiation is impossible after all. Note, if you've ever opened a support case with Signal you'd know they do have quite a bit of telemetry, they just don't keep it as long as Microsoft does.

If you need authenticated communications, use Teams.
If you do not need authenticated communications, and you'd like there to be no log of the conversation, you use Signal.

Both platforms provide encryption for the conversation itself.

I use both, love them both, for very different reasons.

 

[Rigo]

Thank you folks for all the contributions.
The PSTN side of the conversation doesn't have access to the internet nor a smartphone or computer hence the requirement for VOIP kind of communication.
I'd suggest the M365 route to enable the trick as suggested but this is a private non-business usage.
Looks like this is not going to go anywhere

 

[Sky-Knight]

Thank you folks for all the contributions.
The PSTN side of the conversation doesn't have access to the internet nor a smartphone or computer hence the requirement for VOIP kind of communication.
I'd suggest the M365 route to enable the trick as suggested but this is a private non-business usage.
Looks like this is not going to go anywhere

No, he's better off with a dedicated VoIP provider. Seriously, it's cheaper / easier!

I love Teams, but the PSTN integration Teams carries is barely usable for businesses, it's too expensive for personal use.

 

[frase]

May have to deploy the pigeons, I had a similar issue with a client as Skype was used to comm with distant relatives in Canada. I could not come up with any solution in regards to this dilema only to sub to 365 which the client did not wish to do and would not be suited for them. As well for some, and this is a very tech anxious person, so was not going down that route.