Glossary > Bring Your Own Carrier (BYOC)

Bring Your Own Carrier (BYOC)

Published: October 31, 2019

What is Bring Your Own Carrier (BYOC)?

BYOC (Bring Your Own Carrier) is a model of telephony that lets enterprises unbundle PSTN connectivity from communications platforms. Then, businesses can pick the carrier of their choice and plug voice, messaging, and emergency, directly into their unified communications (UC) and contact center (CC) platforms.

Another way to think about BYOC? Whenever a business uses a UC or CC platform, it can bypass using that platform’s built-in calling plans and work directly with a carrier. This lets enterprises bill and manage voice services themselves, rather than using a third party to power their communications.

How does BYOC work?

With the rise in popularity of cloud-based communication platforms, the need for organizations to bring carriers with them has been wrapped with programs and solutions known as BYOC.

Many UCaaS and CCaaS vendors have developed their own programs to let you BYOC. Think Direct Routing and Operator Connect via Microsoft Teams, Cloud Connect and Local Gateway via Webex Calling, and even Carrier Exchange via Zoom Phone.

While all of these solutions work differently, you can keep your existing Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) services while enjoying the benefits of a new UC or CC platform. By offering alternative PSTN connectivity methods, you can enjoy all the features of cutting-edge cloud platforms without sacrificing the flexibility of PSTN connectivity.

Whether you’re setting up BYOC for Microsoft Teams or Webex Calling, you’ll need to repurpose existing carrier contracts, dial plans, features, and session border controllers (SBCs). Then, you’ll need to port numbers from the software to your carrier, and activate your numbers!

Four benefits of BYOC

According to the 2023 Enterprise Communications Landscape, 59% of respondents said BYOC integrations are a requirement in a carrier or software provider. As businesses navigate the complex landscape of communications, BYOC brings an opportunity to streamline and consolidate while keeping your integration options open and flexible in the future.

BYOC gives IT leaders the ability to choose a carrier that best fits their business needs and remove the middleman reselling carrier services for transparency, lower costs, and better support.

More and more, IT leaders want the option to BYOC for the added control during a migration from on-prem telecom to cloud-based deployments. By moving away from on-prem PRI and converting traffic to SIP Trunking, you can gain more flexibility, scalability, and control over your telephony solutions.

So when does this make sense, and why are businesses opting for this?

Total migration control: Getting voice, emergency, and messaging services from UCaaS or CCaaS Calling Plans means you’re giving up control over your PSTN connectivity. With BYOC, you can order and port numbers, set up SIP trunks, provision and manage failover, and implement changes directly with your telephony provider of choice. This makes moving to and around the cloud easy, with granular flexibility in number porting and users.

Faster support: BYOC means troubleshooting is as simple as sending an email and receiving an answer. You’re zero hops away from your communications provider, so you can resolve issues quickly and address issues before they become problems. Plus, working directly with your carrier lets you go right to the source for voice and messaging insights, pricing and billing, and even usage.

Cost savings: Unbundling and going directly to your carrier means you only pay for what you use, rather than a per-seat, per-user fee like many calling plans. Aside from cutting out the middleman markup, BYOC gives you access to granular billing details and understand how you’re consuming services. Your carrier may also offer preferred pricing and volume discounts, so both your software platforms and the power behind them become even more cost-effective.

Global reach: Does your UC or CC platform offer calling plans for everywhere you have employees and customers? Depending on your business, bringing your own carrier means you can get the coverage your business demands, with a single vendor.

Is BYOC right for you?

While BYOC has many perks, it’s not the right solution for everyone. BYOC is right for your business if you…

Support complex call flows and granular call routing
Need to support emergency regulations, like RAY BAUM’s Act and Kari’s Law
Have employees or customers globally, where Calling Plans might not include
Want to integrate with third-party platforms, like voice authentication, on the carrier level
Need a direct line to enterprise-grade troubleshooting and support
Look for one-hop PSTN connections and reliable call quality
Need to migrate to the cloud, or another cloud-based platform, without disruption
Want to cut down on calling costs and pool usage across users

However, if you don’t want the responsibility of implementing and managing your enterprise’s telephony, the bundled calling plans from your UCaaS, CCaaS, CPaaS, and Hosted Voice providers may be right for you. If you do have technical expertise and need migration control, cost savings, or transparency, learn more about Bandwidth’s BYOC program with best-in-class UCaaS and CCaaS platforms.

Get started with BYOC

With our owned and operated all-IP tier 1 voice network, local number coverage, 5x redundant toll-free solutions, robust dashboard, and our white-glove customer support, you can save time, money, and hassle.

Today, you can choose Bandwidth as your carrier of choice and we’ll give you the APIs and tools you need to compose call-flows and orchestrate migrations–and more–that will make your business thrive.