No. With the approaching UIS switch off of the Cisco VoIP service in 2028, retaining a Cisco VoIP handset is not sustainable. Additionally, there is a financial incentive for the Department in expediting the move to Microsoft Teams well ahead of this deadline. We are working closely with UIS to minimise licence migration costs and for each extension migrated there is a 75% saving in recurrent costs. Given the number of extensions in use at Engineering, this saving is significant.

If a physical handset is preferred, then Microsoft Teams enabled devices are an option but the Department will only fund physical handsets for shared phones in specific scenarios, for example where a phone needs to be installed to meet health and safety requirements. Please seek guidance from the IT Helpdesk prior to making any purchase.

Microsoft Teams is no less or more secure than Cisco VoIP. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest in Microsoft services, between services, and between clients and services. Microsoft does this using industry standard technologies such as TLS and SRTP to encrypt all data in transit. For further information see Security and Microsoft Teams. If you are working on a research collaboration and have concerns about the use of Microsoft Teams and security, you should discuss and agree the most appropriate means for communication with your collaborator.

Microsoft Teams is available to run as a Progressive Web Application (PWA) on Linux. Please visit the Microsoft Teams Site to login. When using the Chromium or Microsoft Edge browser there is typically an option to download and install the PWA via an icon at the right-hand side of the address bar. Once installed this then allows Teams to run in a separate window from your browser.