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BT Wholesale has announced the availability of its Operator Connect for Microsoft Teams solution via Microsoft’s AppSource store, offering channel partners a streamlined route to deliver telephony-enabled collaboration to end-users.
With just 5.7% of the global 350 million Teams users currently voice-enabled, Operator Connect presents a significant opportunity for partners to bridge the gap. The solution allows users to make and receive calls within Teams as they would on a standard phone, without requiring additional infrastructure or complex IT deployment.
BT Wholesale’s integration with AppSource simplifies ordering and provisioning, enabling partners to activate services in minutes. The move aligns with the industry-wide shift to All-IP communications ahead of the UK’s PSTN switch-off in 2027, as legacy copper networks become increasingly unreliable, resilience incidents rose 45% last year alone.
Gavin Jones, Director of the Partner Channel at BT Wholesale, said: “Cloud-based communications have transformed the business landscape, shifting from fragmented, siloed solutions to fully integrated ecosystems. While video conferencing has been widely adopted, there are still many more value-added services to take advantage of. Partnering with Microsoft will help us maximise this opportunity for the channel by offering Operator Connect through AppSource.
“Simplicity is our goal. BT Wholesale Operator Connect for Teams makes it easy to deliver scalable, affordable and reliable voice solutions that meet the demands of modern enterprises. We’re giving channel partners a strong foothold in an ever-growing market.”
Gareth Bleasdale, Senior GTM Manager at Microsoft, added: “With millions of users leveraging Microsoft Teams within the UK, the opportunity to attach advanced workloads such as Microsoft Teams Phone is vast. New offers such as BT Wholesale Operator Connect for Teams help organisations to simplify and transform, delivering AI-powered collaboration at scale.”
Key benefits for channel partners and end-users include:
- Scalable voice services without major infrastructure investment
- Direct ordering via AppSource, reducing deployment time
- No IT development required – Teams integration is near-instant
- Works with Teams Phone, Mobile, and EE, enabling unified communications across devices.
BT Wholesale forecasts over 2 million new Operator Connect users in the UK over the next five years, representing a direct annual revenue opportunity exceeding £12 million.
