As more and more customers are migrating to Microsoft Office 365 with Lync, they need to upgrade their communications experience by adding “bridge quality” audio conferencing to their system on a “pay as you use” basis with no additional monthly fees. This service will enable Lync users to hold excellent voice quality, Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) conference calls with other Lync users and non-Lync conferees combined.
There are a couple of main reasons to add this feature. First of all, it will allow you to add virtually the entire world to your universe of potential conferees on a live conference call. With Lync Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) conferencing, you are limited to only Lync users in your universe. True, the conference calls are free and included in your monthly fees, but you can’t add non-Lync outsiders to your calls. When you enable PSTN audio conferencing, then you open up your universe of conferees to the world and you only pay a low per minute rate when you use this bridge conferencing service.
The second main reason is that adding audio conference calling enhances the communications experience in that the voice quality is crystal clear for all of the participants on the conference bridge. So whether you are hosting a small or large conference call, you don’t have to worry about the voice quality because there are no bandwidth issues, such as tiling, echo or distortion.
It is also very simple to set up an audio conference enabled through Lync. You simply schedule the call through Outlook and the conferees will receive the bridge number and pin code along with the Lync link to join the call. So for the conferees that have Lync, when it was time for the call, they would just click on the link to join via Lync and they would be connected to the call. For the conferees without Lync, they would be given the dial in number and the pin code, which when dialed would connect them into the conference call.
Only three companies have established a partnership, which allows them to integrate this type of audio conferencing to the Lync product. Some of these companies have a bundled pricing plan, while other companies charge by the minute. Conferees in international countries have specific International Toll Free Service (ITFS) numbers that access the bridge and they are charged at rates by each country. There are no installation or monthly fees and these companies will do all of the implementation.
The process for adding audio conferencing to your Lync service is very simple. The list of conferees that are approved for conferencing will be added into your Lync system and the telephone dial in number and pin codes will be added, as well. Once this is accomplished, your company will be ready to start collaborating with all of the best tools available in the marketplace.
If you already have Office 365 with Lync or you are planning on migrating to this service, adding audio conferencing will greatly improve your capability for worldwide collaboration with a simple implementation process.