Starting now Microsoft has added a phone number with unlimited minutes to your account. This number is for audio conferencing during your Teams meetings.
Why do you need a phone number? Most of the time people join meetings using their computer or Teams app on their phone because the Teams app on your cellphone uses data, not cellular minutes and most of the time you also want the benefits of video too. But, there can be times when you’re in a place where the Internet is simply lousy or maybe people joining the meeting are outside of the Country (more on that below). Or maybe you just want this to be a conference call. Or maybe they are using a computer that doesn’t have a sound card. In any of these situations, a phone number can be handy to have for your meetings. Having a phone number can be a work around for several different situations.
You’ll start to notice that your Teams meeting signature will look something like ours (below). Normally a person will choose Click here to join the meeting but if they don’t have audio on their desktop computer, for example, or are on that lousy internet connection they can click the phone number to dial-in and the conference ID will be entered in for them automatically. No need to fumble around find the code.
International dialing
For those international situations where you need to provide them with a local number to use, Microsoft has you covered too. They haven’t just given you a single number, they’ve actually given you a number in 44 Countries and regions.
Here’s part of the list that you see when you click that link.
To use those numbers, the meeting attendee would just click the Find a local number link and pick the number that is local for them. This way they won’t incur any international charges.
Just need to talk to an international customer? Send a meeting request and then use this feature. Neither of you will incur international telephone charges!
This is one of the many additions that came along with that recent price increase. We’re starting to see those benefits start to roll in now.
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