Microsoft Teams FREE Audio Conferencing is coming.... (sort of)

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Good news (sort of), yesterday, Jared Spataro, the Corporate Vice President for Microsoft 365 announced in a blog post that the Audio Conferencing Addon CAL will be included as part of all Enterprise and Business CALS from 1st March 2022. This means that users can host Teams meetings and all of them will include the PSTN Dial in number for over 70 countries and 44 languages, without the need for the additional Audio Conference Addon CAL as we need now (or have A5/E5).


This sounds great right? Free !!..... well not quite free, while it will be included with the CAL, the CALs themselves are actually going up in price at the same time, so the following (List price increases) applies:
  • Office 365 E1 from $8 to $10 per user per month
  • Office 365 E3 from $20 to $23 per user per month
  • Office 365 E5 from $35 to $38 per user per month
  • Microsoft 365 Business Basic from $5 to $6 per user per month
  • Microsoft 365 Business Premium from $20 to $22 per user per month
  • Microsoft 365 E3 from $32 to $36 per user per month
This is ok, since the Audio Conference addon is about $4 per month, so basically getting it for half price, although the E5 already includes this addon but it is increasing by $4 anyway, so not sure of the logic here!

Education and consumer licenses are NOT set to increase at this time. It is not clear if any dial out is included like it is with the conferencing addon so something may be included here and announced later. Watch this space.


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