The businesses in a fast-changing communication environment are demanding more freedom and autonomy in their telecommunication system. Be your own carrier (BYOC) is the solution that enables organizations to choose their favorite carriers and seamlessly integrate them with the existing communication platforms. It will save you costs and improve the quality and reliability of your communication infrastructure.
Here we will discuss BYOC, its functionality, and the main advantages it provides to businesses aiming to optimize their communication strategy.
What is BYOC (Bring Your Own Carrier)?
BYOC is a telecommunications approach which enables companies to select their telephony service provider to provide public switched telephone network (PSTN) calling in their unified communications (UC) platform.
BYOC allows organizations to gain greater control of their voice and messaging communication. It also allows them to select the carrier services that best suit their requirements in terms of cost, coverage, and quality of service.
Best Advantages of BYOC
BYOC also has a few distinct advantages over legacy telephony, which are presented in the following list:
i. Cost Savings
BYOC enables the selection of the most cost-efficient carrier by a business. This will allow them to negotiate more favorable rates or remain with a carrier that has good pricing, which will save them on the total cost of communication.
ii. Flexibility
Companies are able to choose carriers that best suit their needs, like coverage, quality and price. This enables them to be flexible and respond rapidly to shifting business requirements or geographic growth.
iii. Control
BYOC provides more control to businesses over their communication infrastructure. They have the ability to handle relationships with carriers directly, which provides a higher quality of service and a quicker resolution of issues.
iv. Global Reach
Global businesses have an opportunity to blend and combine carriers to provide the best service in various regions. This means that they will never lack the best possible connectivity.
v. Scalability
As a business expands, it becomes very easy to expand the communication services used by adding and increasing the number of carriers without being constrained by the restrictions of a particular carrier.
vi. Integration
BYOC can be easily integrated with the current communication systems and software. This simplifies the process of adopting new technologies which do not have to overhaul the whole communication infrastructure.
Businesses are able to maximize their communication strategies by maintaining control of the choice of carriers. By using BYOC, you are able to ensure that you increase the quality of service provision and minimise costs, without compromising on the ability to change in the future.
How BYOC Works?
In some cases, communications service providers permit users to select their own carriers or SIP trunking providers and add them to a larger phone system. Without being tied to a vendor, the client business is able to choose a carrier that fits its own contact center platform.
Certain BYOC programs can be programmed to accept only inbound calls, or to accept both outbound and inbound calling. BYOC is familiar to you if you have ever used Microsoft Teams Direct Routing feature.
Why Do UC Platforms Enable BYOC?
You may be asking yourself why, since the name contains the word communications, a UC platform would give you the option to bring your own carrier. The short answer is that UC platforms are aware that they cannot fulfill all the telephony requirements of contemporary businesses.
Even at best, it can be costly to call both customers and employees worldwide using built-in calling plans. Worst case, UCs with a small geographic coverage in other countries cannot connect at all.
In order to accommodate the requirements of companies operating worldwide, various UC platforms have developed methods that telephony providers can use to implement PSTN services within their platforms. Although BYOC may result in the simultaneous operation of two types of calling system (UC platform and traditional PBX (private branch exchange)) it can also allow high-quality, high-power, and high-cost-effective calling.
How BYOC Can Help with the Challenges of UC Platforms?
Having encountered a few challenges or frustrations when using your UC platform to make calls, BYOC can enable you to fill the gaps in the service provision. We will cover some of the pain points that you can alleviate with BYOC below:
i. Limited Global Coverage
Although the number of remote workers is lower than it was at the height of the pandemic, it remains firmly above the level of 22.4 in 2019 (26 in 2022). Consequently, companies must have effective applications that can unite workers regardless of their location.
Increasingly, the employees are located in different parts of the world. The advantages of remote teams, such as access to bigger talent pools, a variety of opinions, and possibly reduced costs, increased the willingness of organizations to hire individuals in other countries by almost 25%.
The location of more team members places various stresses on UC platforms to bridge a more globalized workforce, particularly in regions with low internet connectivity. However, UC platforms are not telecommunications providers and so lack direct access to the PSTN or large repositories of numbers in local markets. In many cases, their home calling plans are only available on demand beyond the U.S., Canada and Western Europe. Connectivity in developing market areas such as Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America needs you to enter into an agreement with a provider to ensure good coverage.
You can also bring your own carrier along with a global number inventory into your UC platform to help link your employees to one another as well as your customers wherever they are.
ii. Expensive Calling Rates
Where UC platforms do have good coverage, telco firms that have direct access to PSTN would offer more favorable calling rates. Regardless of whether your pricing strategy is a calling bundle or a usage one, often carriers can provide better calling rates on domestic and international calling than on native calling plans of UC platforms.
Most carriers are providing pay-as-you-go solutions, which result in you not paying based on your number of seats or based on a pre-paid number of minutes like you would with many UC platforms. Therefore, the pricing strategy of carriers usually becomes cheaper than standard UC calling plans that are native.
iii. Fluctuating Call Quality
You do not need to unbundle your UC platform and sacrifice the quality of calls. As a matter of fact, it may improve your calling experience. BYOC can reduce the number of dropped calls and reduce the frequency of freezing up or delays in sound with direct PSTN connectivity over a larger coverage area.
Moreover, companies can acquire additional control over their inbound and outbound routing of calls by selecting a carrier that provides them with visibility in their Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) connectivity. In that manner, when problems occur, organizations can spot the problem and take direct measures to rectify it instead of relying on their UC platform to rectify it.
In Conclusion – BYOC
BYOC (Bring Your Own Cloud) is highly flexible, controllable, and economical because it provides businesses and individuals with the opportunity to choose and operate their own cloud resources. It allows the development of individual solutions and enhanced security control at the cost of the technical competencies to operate various cloud setups.
Although it may be perfect in an organization that requires certain services or wants to cut costs, it is not appropriate for all people because it gives extra responsibility to the user in maintaining their cloud infrastructure.
Finally, BYOC is a strategy that has its benefits and limitations, and it is extremely important to evaluate your needs and capabilities when implementing this strategy at your organization.
FAQs – BYOC
Q1. How do BYOC and traditional cloud services differ?
Traditional cloud services are generally offered and operated by a third-party firm, with users bound to a group of services, infrastructure, and pricing paradigms. Instead, BYOC enables users to choose and control their own cloud services, which provide them with greater control over the resources and costs they consume.
Q2. Does BYOC fit in with small companies?
Yes, BYOC may be beneficial to small enterprises as it allows them to customize their cloud infrastructure based on their requirements and finances. It can also give you flexibility in resource scaling as the business continues. It may also provide scaling resource flexibility as the business expands.
Q3. Is BYOC technical in nature?
Yes, BYOC usually needs a greater degree of technical complexity than a managed cloud service. To successfully manage and use their cloud resources, the user must have an understanding of cloud platforms, data security, and integration processes.
Q4. What impact does BYOC have on data security?
BYOC empowers users to have greater authority over their data security, which may be an advantage when users have unique security or compliance needs. It does, however, imply that it is their responsibility to achieve their own cloud environments, which may need more effort and skill than a managed service.
Q5. Does BYOC work with other cloud strategies?
BYOC can be combined with hybrid cloud or multi-cloud. To illustrate this, a company can implement a combination of its own cloud infrastructure (BYOC) and a commercial or private cloud service provider to suit different performance, security or cost needs.
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