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What is Azure Communications Gateway?

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Azure Communications Gateway enables Microsoft Teams calling through the Operator Connect and Teams Phone Mobile programs for your telecommunications network. Azure Communications Gateway is certified as part of the Operator Connect Accelerator program. It provides Voice and IT integration with Microsoft Teams across both fixed and mobile networks.

Important

You must be a telecommunications operator or service provider and you must have signed an Operator Connect or Teams Phone Mobile agreement with Microsoft. For more information on these programs, see Operator Connect or Teams Phone Mobile.

Diagram that shows Azure Communications Gateway between Microsoft Phone System and your networks. Your networks can be fixed and/or mobile.

Azure Communications Gateway provides advanced SIP, RTP and HTTP interoperability functions (including Teams Certified SBC function) so that you can integrate with Operator Connect and Teams Phone Mobile quickly, reliably and in a secure manner.

As part of Microsoft Azure, the network elements in Azure Communications Gateway are fully managed and include an availability SLA. This full management simplifies network operations integration and accelerates the timeline for adding new network functions into production.

Architecture

Azure Communications Gateway acts as the edge of your network, ensuring compliance with the requirements of the Operator Connect and Teams Phone Mobile programs.

Diagram that shows Azure Communications Gateway connecting to Microsoft Phone System and operator networks. The details follow the diagram.

To ensure availability, Azure Communications Gateway is deployed into two Azure Regions within a given Geography. It supports both active-active and primary-backup geographic redundancy models to fit with your network design.

For more information about the networking requirements, see Your network and Azure Communications Gateway and Reliability in Azure Communications Gateway.

Traffic from all enterprises shares a single SIP trunk, using a multi-tenant format. This multi-tenant format ensures the solution is suitable for both the SMB and Enterprise markets.

Important

Azure Communications Gateway doesn't store/process any data outside of the Azure Regions where you deploy it.

Voice features

Azure Communications Gateway supports the SIP and RTP requirements for Teams Certified SBCs. It can transform call flows to suit your network with minimal disruption to existing infrastructure.

Azure Communications Gateway's voice features include:

  • Voice interworking - Azure Communications Gateway can resolve interoperability issues between your network and Microsoft Teams. Its position on the edge of your network reduces disruption to your networks, especially in complex scenarios like Teams Phone Mobile where Teams Phone System is the call control element. Azure Communications Gateway includes powerful interworking features, for example:

    • 100rel and early media inter-working
    • Downstream call forking with codec changes
    • Custom SIP header and SDP manipulation
    • DTMF (Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency tones) interworking between inband tones, RFC2833 telephone event and SIP INFO/NOTIFY signaling
    • Payload type interworking
    • Media transcoding
    • Ringback injection

  • Call control integration for Teams Phone Mobile - Azure Communications Gateway includes an optional IMS Application Server called Mobile Control Point (MCP). MCP ensures calls are only routed to the Microsoft Phone System when a user is eligible for Teams Phone Mobile services. This process minimizes the changes you need in your mobile network to route calls into Microsoft Teams. For more information, see Mobile Control Point in Azure Communications Gateway for Teams Phone Mobile.

  • Optional direct peering to Emergency Routing Service Providers for Operator Connect and Teams Phone Mobile (US only) - If your network can't transmit Emergency location information in PIDF-LO (Presence Information Data Format Location Object) SIP bodies, Azure Communications Gateway can connect directly to your chosen Teams-certified Emergency Routing Service Provider (ERSP) instead. See Emergency calling for Operator Connect and Teams Phone Mobile with Azure Communications Gateway.

Number Management Portal for provisioning for Operator Connect and Teams Phone Mobile

Launching Operator Connect or Teams Phone Mobile requires you to use the Operator Connect APIs to provision subscribers (instead of the Operator Connect Portal). Azure Communications Gateway offers a Number Management Portal integrated into the Azure portal. This portal uses the Operator Connect APIs, allowing you to pass the certification process and sell Operator Connect or Teams Phone Mobile services while you carry out a custom API integration project.

For more information, see Number Management Portal for provisioning with Operator Connect APIs and Manage an enterprise with Azure Communications Gateway's Number Management Portal for Operator Connect and Teams Phone Mobile.

The Number Management Portal is available as part of the optional API Bridge feature.

Tip

The Number Management Portal does not allow your enterprise customers to manage Teams Calling. For example, it does not provide self-service portals.

API integration

Azure Communications Gateway includes API integration features. These features can help you to speed up your rollout and monetization of Teams Calling support.

These features include:

Next steps