Geographically-bound telephony constrains global business

Author: Zach Bennett, Microsoft Teams MVP and Principal Architect, LoopUp

Multinational businesses are still running on a telephony model built for a different era. Fragmented contracts, region-specific providers, and legacy infrastructure are making global communication unnecessarily complex, expensive, and slow to scale.

In a world built on ‘anytime, anywhere’ communication and with the capability of being globally unified, why is telephony still tied to geography?

Despite the rise of global and remote workforces, consistent and smooth communication is important for future proofing multinational business. Unified communications (UC) platforms like Microsoft Teams have unlocked the ability to work and call from anywhere, paving the way for organisations all over the globe to communicate easily. So why is telephony still trapped in national silos and why are global enterprises still in outdated legacy telecoms contracts?

Contracts come with different pricing, service standards, support teams and portals, often duplicated in multiple different countries. But why should expanding enterprises put up with the geographical limitations of telcos? How can multinational organisations benefit from next-generation communications and avoid the complexities and inefficiencies of juggling multiple telephony providers? And is it possible to avoid the multiple contracts of telco giants and achieve cost savings and streamlined operations with a single, multinational partner? There’s no reason expanding enterprises should settle for the geographical constraints imposed by legacy telcos. Managing multiple regional providers adds cost, complexity, and inconsistency, and are at odds with how global businesses actually want to operate. The smarter alternative is a single, cloud-based telephony partner that delivers consistency, scale, and simplicity in every market.

Why legacy telcos still think in borders

The answer lies in the legacy infrastructure of telcos like BT, AT&T, Verizon, and Gamma. These companies were built over decades, with physical infrastructure: copper into buildings, later replaced by fibre. Telcos operated primarily in the geographical boundaries of the countries or regions they served.

While these companies have made strides to expand their infrastructure, their businesses are still largely defined by geography. Take, for example, the largest telcos, which have made significant strides to expand their network infrastructure globally. While these companies boast vast networks that extend across continents and under oceans, the reality is that their services are still geographically constrained. Even the biggest players operating in multiple countries fail to provide truly global coverage due to their focus on regional and national infrastructures.

This creates a mismatch. Today’s global enterprises are increasingly centralised in how they manage people, platforms, and technology. They’ve adopted cloud-first, software-led approaches in most of their IT estate. UC platforms now span the globe with single-instance deployments, and yet their telephony is still managed as if each country operates in a silo.

For the IT and procurement teams tasked with managing this situation, the consequences are significant. Every additional provider introduces more complexity – more contracts, invoices, and service relationships to manage and maintain. It also means more moving parts to go wrong, and more inconsistency in regions in terms of experience, cost and reliability.

These issues can multiple. Every time the business moves, grows, or restructures, the telephony network can drag its heels. And for an industry that prides itself on connectivity, telcos consistently rank among the lowest for customer service quality. Resolving issues with even one provider can be frustrating – managing up to 20 or more becomes a logistical nightmare.

Leaving the legacy mindset behind

Smaller, innovative multinational providers have recognised that the future of telephony and telecoms should not be defined by physical infrastructure, but rather provide an efficient, software-based solution that can connect enterprises.

These flexible and agile multinational providers can offer a better solution. They use cloud-based technology to unify global communication, with a single, global contract, a unified tariff structure, one management portal, and seamless integration into platforms like Microsoft Teams. For multinational enterprises, the value is clear: fewer moving parts, faster provisioning, simpler compliance, and a more consistent user experience in borders.

It also means organisations gain greater flexibility to support remote and hybrid working without being tied to old networks. The shift in strategy lets businesses avoid dealing with the inefficiencies and fragmentation of working with multiple telcos in different regions, enabling a truly global, cost-efficient solution that suits their needs.

What global leaders are doing differently

However, many C-suite executives remain unaware of the waste and inefficiency involved in managing contracts with multiple providers. While the administrative complexity, fragmented services and vendor management overheads quickly add up, they are often overlooked or come lower down the priority ladder.

By consolidating telecoms services to one provider with a global reach, companies can eliminate inefficiency, streamline processes, and achieve better cost control.

Thankfully, the C-suite mindset is changing. As CFOs demand tighter control over costs and CIOs push for greater agility, telecoms is coming under the spotlight. Businesses are starting to audit their global telco estates and ask challenging questions: Why are we still doing this country-by-country? How much are we spending managing this complexity? And what would it mean to simplify?

A simpler way to connect the world

True ‘anytime, anywhere’ communication isn’t a myth. But, it does demand a single, global provider. While traditional telcos talk a good game, their legacy infrastructure keeps them anchored to national boundaries.

For enterprises aiming to scale efficiently, this model no longer works. Managing multiple regional contracts creates operational drag, hidden costs, and inconsistent service. The situation is made worse by poor support, and expanding enterprises require new age telcos they can rely on.

What global businesses really need is a telephony solution that matches the way they actually work: flexible, unified, and borderless. That’s the promise of multinational cloud telephony and the future of global communication.

Author: Zach Bennett, Microsoft Teams MVP and Principal Architect, LoopUp

(Image source: “CERN Globe Light Man” by shotleyshort is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.)

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Tags: unified communications, video calling