The partnership will help organisations speed up and simplify the provisioning of telephony services, while also reducing deployment time.
The offering is integrated with Telstra Global Internet Direct and is currently available to customers in Asia. Telstra says it plans to roll out services to Europe and the US in 2022.
Sanjay Nayak (pictured), Telstra executive of fixed connectivity products said underlying technologies like cloud and network connectivity need to work smoothly with reduced complexity as organisations accelerate their digital transformation journey.
“Microsoft Azure Peering Service provides direct access between Telstra and Microsoft’s networks – providing users with robust connectivity service at a location nearest to them, thereby reducing latency when accessing Microsoft’s workplace services.
"By leveraging Telstra’s connectivity and professional services capabilities and Microsoft’s focus on intelligent cloud services, we aim to help organisations across the region and globally enable a modern work experience,” he added.
The service promises improved voice call quality for business users through the use of private network infrastructure and administrators will be able to manage telephone numbers through the Microsoft Teams Admin Center.
The announcement builds on a long-standing relationship between the two companies and follows on from the Telstra Calling for Microsoft Teams launch from last year.
This offering aims to enhance the connectivity to Microsoft cloud services, while also providing an integrated calling experience via Teams.
Customers can register in the Azure portal and Telstra and Microsoft will provide enterprise customers with end-to-end, high performing public connectivity with optimal routing in their selected region.
In other Microsoft Teams news, both Europe's Colt and Africa's Liquid Intelligent Technologies last week revealed they have joined Operator Connect.
The development will allow enterprise users to make global phone calls via the Teams service.
Microsoft has been rolling out Operator Connect as a cloud-based additions to Teams since March 2021, after the platform experienced a significant rise in usage during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic at the start of 2020.
