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Cloud phone systems and UCaaS advisory

Unified communications as a service replaces a PBX with cloud voice, video and messaging. Most Australian organisations arrive at this decision when a phone system reaches end of support, when an office moves, or when Microsoft Teams raises the question of whether a separate phone platform is still needed.

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The platform

What a cloud phone system actually replaces

A UCaaS platform takes over four jobs the old PBX was doing. Which of them your organisation leans on decides how much the cheaper tiers will cost you later.

Calling that follows the person

A cloud phone system moves the extension off the desk and onto the person. The same number rings a handset, a laptop and a mobile, and staff keep working wherever there is an internet connection. This is the part that retires the PBX, the maintenance contract and the ISDN or SIP trunks attached to it.

Call flows you can change yourself

Auto attendants, hunt groups, out of hours handling and holiday routing, edited in a browser by somebody in your own team. Platforms separate the first time you need a change at short notice. Some let a manager do it in ten minutes. Others route it through a support ticket and a lead time.

Meetings and messaging in the same licence

Video meetings, chat and file sharing bundled alongside calling. Organisations either save money here by retiring a separate meetings subscription, or pay twice by keeping both. That is a licensing exercise worth finishing before the platform decision, because it moves the comparison by a large margin.

Reporting and call recording

Who called, who answered, how long they waited and how many gave up, with recordings kept for the period your obligations require. Compliance recording in particular is licensed differently on every platform and is the most common source of cost surprises after signature.

The decision

Microsoft Teams as the phone system, or a dedicated voice platform

Most Australian organisations reach this fork the moment somebody asks why a separate phone system is needed when the whole company is already in Teams all day.

Calling inside Microsoft Teams

Staff already live in Teams, so adoption costs almost nothing and there is one client to support and one place to look for help. Call handling is deliberately simple, which suits a general office population. Queueing, supervisor tooling and compliance recording are where it runs thin, and each of those gets solved by adding a third party product with its own licence and its own support relationship.

Suits office populations, simple call handling, an existing Microsoft estate

A dedicated voice platform

Deeper call handling, stronger queueing and supervision, native recording, and a support relationship with a vendor whose entire business is telephony. It costs more per user, and it puts a second client on the desktop unless it is integrated back into Teams. It earns that on the teams whose working day is the phone.

Suits phone-led teams, contact handling, compliance recording

Microsoft Teams

Three ways to connect Microsoft Teams to the phone network

Teams calling is one product bought three different ways. The method decides your call rates, your carrier choice and how much infrastructure somebody has to own.

Operator Connect

Your carrier appears inside the Teams admin centre and the service is provisioned in a few clicks. There is no session border controller to run and no separate voice infrastructure to patch. Carrier choice is limited to the operators Microsoft has onboarded, and rates move less in negotiation than they do on direct routing.

Direct Routing

A session border controller connects Teams to any carrier you choose. It gives the widest carrier choice, the best rates at volume and the most control over numbers and routing. It also adds a component somebody has to own, patch and support, whether that is your team or a managed provider.

Microsoft Calling Plans

Calling bought from Microsoft as a licence per user. It is the simplest to buy and normally the dearest per minute, with number ranges and porting handled inside the Microsoft estate. It fits small user counts and low call volumes where simplicity is worth more than the rate.

The process

How a phone system selection runs with us

Five stages, from what the current system quietly does through to the port. You sign directly with the vendor you choose, and the advisory service costs you nothing.

An audit of what the phone system actually does today

Extensions, hunt groups, out of hours rules, the fax line nobody admits to, the numbers still printed on old signage, and the handful of processes built around a feature of the old system. Hidden dependencies surface here, and this is the step most often skipped in a rushed replacement.

A shortlist drawn from the whole market

We hold relationships across more than thirty vendors, so the shortlist begins with what fits the requirement. Three or four platforms usually survive the first pass. You are told what each of them is weak at before you sit through a demonstration.

Demonstrations scripted from your own call handling

We write the demonstration script from your call flows and sit in every session. Vendors lead with their strengths, which is reasonable enough. The value of an independent seat in the room is the follow up question about the capability that was skipped.

Commercial negotiation across the whole contract

User licences, call rates, number ranges, session border controller or Operator Connect fees, handsets, professional services, term length and uplift at renewal. List price is an opening position on every platform in this market, and the tier mix is usually worth more than the discount.

Porting and cutover held to a plan

Number porting sits on the critical path and depends on your losing carrier and on account details matching exactly. We verify the carrier record before a date is committed to the business, run both platforms in parallel, and never schedule a cutover for a Friday.

Due diligence

What we check that a demonstration will not show

A demonstration runs on a clean tenancy with four users and no history. These are the checks that decide whether the platform still looks like a good decision after the port completes.

Call quality across your existing network

Cloud voice puts a real time workload on your internet connection. We test the path at your busiest hour before a platform is chosen, rather than discovering it during a rollout.

The full number inventory

Every range, every direct line, every service number and the ones only appearing on old marketing. Numbers missed at audit stage become the emergency in the week of the port.

Emergency calling and address data

How the platform presents a location for a mobile or remote worker, what is filed against each number, and who is responsible for keeping those records current as people move.

Compliance recording and retention

What is recorded, where it is stored, for how long, who can retrieve it, and what the platform charges for the storage once the retention period is measured in years.

The handset and headset estate

Which of your existing handsets will register on the new platform, which need replacing, and what freight and provisioning add to a quote that only counted licences.

Licence tiers against real use

Most organisations need the top tier for a minority of staff. Vendors quote a single tier across the whole user base, and the mix is usually worth more than the discount.

Support hours and escalation

Which severity levels get an Australian business hours response, which follow the sun, and what the contract actually commits the vendor to when a site loses voice.

Exit terms and number portability

The numbers are yours, and the ease of taking them elsewhere varies. We confirm the exit process, the notice period and any charges before signature rather than at renewal.

Common questions

Asked on most phone system projects

The questions that come up in nearly every first conversation about replacing a phone system, answered without a qualification call first.

What is UCaaS?

Unified communications as a service is business telephony, video meetings and messaging delivered from the cloud on a per user subscription. It removes the on-premise phone system and the maintenance contract attached to it, and lets staff take their extension anywhere they have internet access.

Should we use Microsoft Teams as our phone system?

Teams calling works well where most staff are already in Teams all day and calling needs are straightforward. It becomes a harder fit where you need advanced call handling, contact centre queueing, or specific compliance recording. The practical choice is often Teams for the general population and a dedicated platform for the teams that live on the phone.

What is direct routing?

Direct routing connects Microsoft Teams to a carrier of your choosing through a session border controller, rather than buying calling plans from Microsoft. It usually costs less per user and gives you more control over numbers and call rates, at the price of an extra component to manage.

What happens to our existing phone numbers?

Numbers port across. Porting is routine but it is the step most likely to cause a bad day, because it depends on your losing carrier and on the account details matching exactly. Plan it early, verify the account name and address against the carrier record, and never schedule a port for a Friday.

How much does a cloud phone system cost per user in Australia?

Entry tiers commonly sit in the low tens of dollars per user per month, and the tiers that add contact handling, recording or analytics cost several times that. Call charges, handsets, professional services and any session border controller sit on top. The figure worth comparing is the total across the term rather than the monthly headline.

How long does a UCaaS migration take?

A single site under a hundred users typically runs four to eight weeks, and most of that is number porting rather than platform build. Multiple sites, complex call flows or a Teams integration push it to three months or more. Porting timelines are set by the losing carrier and cannot be shortened by paying more.

We are vendor funded and completely free to your business. Always focused on the right outcome.

Choose a phone system on what it actually does

We audit what your current system quietly does, shortlist the platforms that fit, sit with you through demonstrations and commercial negotiation, and hold the port and cutover to a plan. You sign directly with the vendor you choose, and our service costs you nothing.