Configuring Skype for Business PSTN Conferencing Feature in New Zealand
I've been looking into Skype for Business PSTN conferencing and I am pretty amazed how much easier it is to setup. I remember one place I used to work and the whole dial-in functionality for a conference with their traditional phone provider was an unpleasant experience for me as an IT professional. These days most companies have a subscription to Office 365. This feature is absolutely fantastic for those companies but most of the time they are not aware of it. I will show you how easy it is to get this setup for your company so you could use Skype for Business for your meetings and still allow those non-skype users to dial in with a traditional phone line. So I have created two Skype for Business "Meeting Organizers" in my Office 365 tenancy. I have named them "Bill Gates" and "Mark Zuckerberg" (Great for SEO of this site!!). So what license do they need to be able to organize Skype for Business meeting? They only need Skype for Business Plan 1 or Plan 2. What if they need PSTN conferencing? They will need an "Audio Conferencing" license as well. I believe the name of this license might vary according to the country of your tenancy. This might be called "PSTN Conferencing" as well in some other countries but in New Zealand we see it as "Audio Conferencing". Let's start configuring things in Skype for Business Admin Center. Go to "audio conferencing" and then check "Microsoft bridge" tab. As soon as you have added a license that gives you the capabilities of Skype for Business Plan 2 into your tenancy, you will start seeing this tab populated with many service numbers. I already have a dedicated number setup in Wellington, New Zealand:
Service Numbers in Skype for Business admin center Let's see how we can add a new Service Number. Service numbers can be used by external parties to dial-in to join a Skype for Business meeting. Go to "voice" and then under "phone numbers" click the + sign and choose "NEW SERVICE NUMBER":
Adding a new service number in Skype for Business admin center Then select the Country/Region and City in New Zealand. Also you need to put the Quantity you need. I will put 2 for two new meeting organizers Bill and Mark.
Add new service number in Skype for Business admin center Once you have added the numbers, you need to acquire them by clicking on "acquire numbers":
Acquiring the new service numbers in Skype for Business admin center Now you can see the two new numbers you acquired under "phone numbers". They should say "Activated" under "Number Status" and "Unassigned" in "Assigned" column:
Skype for Business - Unassigned numbers Go to "audio conferencing" and "users" tab. You should see that Bill and Mark are already assigned with the default dedicated service number:
Audio Conferencing users with their default numbers Read the full article













