BlueJeans by Verizon announced new features to its BlueJeans Gateway for Microsoft Teams solution (BlueJeans Gateway). Additionally Microsoft named Verizon as an early launch partner for its new Operator Connect platform. Operator Connect creates a direct peering relationship between the Microsoft Teams platform and Verizon’s SIP trunking network — claiming a more secure and enterprise-grade, end-to-end telephony solution and automation of provisioning and management processes.

With Microsoft Teams reaching 115 million daily active users (DAU) in October 2020, IT and business leaders are now tasked with accelerating their approach for ensuring business continuity and Microsoft Teams connectivity for employees once office doors open back up. As a certified gold Microsoft partner, Verizon is positioning itself to support organizations of all sizes using Microsoft Teams.

With more than 1 billion cloud-connected room system minutes supporting thousands of different room system configurations, the Microsoft-certified BlueJeans Gateway for Microsoft Teams is a SaaS solution that enables customers to use their existing H.323 and SIP-based endpoints to join Microsoft Teams meetings from any conference room or huddle space.

According to Verizon, nearly 650 customers have chosen BlueJeans Gateway for Microsoft Teams as their cloud video interop (CVI) solution of choice for connecting their existing hardware infrastructure to join Microsoft Teams meetings. The new features include:

• Auto-Join: Ensuring compliance with Covid-related protocols, Gateway-enabled room systems can now choose to automatically join Microsoft Teams meetings without the touch of any buttons. This hands-free option provides an added degree of confidence for employees as they return to the office. If there is an existing meeting going on, the new meeting will not start unless prompted.​
• 1080p HD Video: With add-on support for 1080p HD video quality, customers can experience high-quality video from their room systems using their existing hardware.
• Video Quality Enhancements: Reduce pixilation during Microsoft Teams video meetings from standards-based room systems with adaptive FPS support. Providing improved video refresh rates in bad network conditions, this feature delivers the optimum video experience in low-bandwidth situations.
• Calendar Integration in the Cloud: Administrators can now deploy BlueJeans’ proprietary one-touch join experience for Microsoft Outlook calendar integration without having to deploy an on-premises listener service.
• Skype Invitation Parsing: Supporting both generic and customized invites, customers using any SIP/H.323 device with BlueJeans calendar integration can now receive Skype for Business calendar invitations on their Gateway enabled endpoint and can join Skype calls with one-touch simplicity.
• China Premium Access: BlueJeans Gateway is the first CVI solution to announce a dedicated network to handle video conferencing traffic into and out of China. Available soon, this paid add-on ensures a better meeting experience for endpoints joining Microsoft Teams meetings when facing variable in-country network conditions.
• Spotlight Support: By extending the Spotlight function of Microsoft Teams meetings to Gateway-enabled rooms, conference room participants are now able to see the spotlighted participant on the room screen.
• Enhanced Mute: When warranted, admins now have the ability to ensure endpoints enabled with
• BlueJeans Gateway can remain unmuted even if the original Microsoft Teams meeting has “Mute for All entry” settings enabled.
• Customized Alternate Dial Strings: To further streamline end user access, organizations now have the ability to create an instruction page containing alternative VTC dial strings, based on specific network configurations and video endpoint types.