adding "Bridge quality" Audio conferencing to MS Office 365 with Lync
As more and more customers migrate 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-go” basis with no additional monthly fees. This service will enable Lync users to make 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 for adding this feature. First, it will allow you to add virtually the entire world to your universe of potential conferees in a live conference call. With Lync Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) conferencing, you are limited to only Lync users in your universe. It’s true that conference calls are free and included in your monthly rates, but you can’t add outside, non-Lync people to your calls. When you enable PSTN audio conferencing, you open your conferencing universe to the world and only pay a low rate per minute when you use this bridging conferencing service.
The second main reason is that the addition of audio conference calls improves the communications experience as voice quality is crystal clear for all participants on the conference bridge. So whether you’re hosting a small or a large conference call, you don’t have to worry about voice quality because there are no bandwidth issues like mosaic, echo, or distortion.
It’s also very easy to set up a Lync-enabled audio conference. Simply schedule the call through Outlook and conferees will receive the bridge number and pin code along with the Lync link to join the call. So for conferees that have Lync, when it was time for the call, they would just click the link to join through Lync and connect to the call. For conferees without Lync, they would be given the dial-in number and pin code, which when dialed would connect them to the conference call.
Only three companies have established a partnership, allowing them to integrate this type of audio conferencing into the Lync product. Some of these companies have a bundled pricing plan, while other companies charge by the minute. Lecturers in international countries have specific International Toll Free Service (ITFS) numbers that access the bridge and are charged at individual country rates. There are no monthly or installation fees and these companies will take care of all the implementation.
The process for adding audio conferencing to your Lync service is very simple. The conference-approved conferee list will be added to your Lync system, and the dial-in number and pin codes will also be added. Once this is accomplished, your company will be ready to start collaborating with all the best tools available on the market.
If you already have Office 365 with Lync or are planning to migrate to this service, adding audio conferencing will greatly enhance your ability for global collaboration with a simple deployment process.