Teams Phone vs Traditional Telephony: The Real Comparison for Your SMB

A PBX for 20 extensions costs approximately €8,000 €15,000 upfront, plus €150 €300/month maintenance, plus SIP lines (€15 €25/line/month). Not counting technician calls for each directory change or extension addition. That's €500 €800/month total for a 20-person SMB. And the equipment needs replacing every 7 10 years.

Teams Phone turns the Teams app your teams already use into a full telephone system. Existing numbers retained (portability), auto-attendant, AI-transcribed voicemail, call transfers, conferences. Works on PC, Mac, iPhone, Android, no physical handset required. With our partner Dstny, Microsoft-certified operator in France, you keep your current numbers and add a line in 5 minutes from the portal.

Monthly cost (20 users): Classic PBX ~€600/month | Teams Phone ~€200/month. Adding an extension: PBX = technician visit (half day) | Teams Phone = 2 min in the portal. Remote work: PBX = call forwarding only | Teams Phone = same number from any device. Maintenance: PBX = annual contract | Teams Phone = included. Call recording: PBX = paid option | Teams Phone = included in Business Premium. AI voice transcription: PBX = no | Teams Phone = yes.

Migration typically takes 2 to 4 weeks. Week 1: number portability requested from Dstny. Weeks 2 and 3: auto-attendant, call queues and forwarding configured. Week 4: switchover. Zero service interruption, old and new numbers run in parallel during transition. Helion Cloud manages the turnkey migration, from initial audit to team training. For the technical detail of each step, see our step-by-step migration guide.