DECT in the Age of UC: What IT Leaders Need to Know Now

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

As enterprises rapidly adopt Unified Communications (UC) platforms like Microsoft Teams, ensuring seamless communication across all work environments becomes critical. With over 320 million monthly active users as of 2024, Teams has become the backbone of voice, messaging, and collaboration for many organizations.

But while Teams is transforming desktop communication, it wasn’t built with deskless workers in mind. Running Teams on a laptop or smartphone doesn’t deliver the reliability these frontline teams need in mobile, high-noise, or safety-critical environments. That’s where DECT in the age of UC proves its value—offering a purpose-built solution that extends UC capabilities to the frontline without compromising on voice quality, security, or performance.

The Challenge: UC Soft Clients Don’t Serve Everyone Equally

Most UC platforms rely on soft clients—software-based phone interfaces that run on computers, tablets, or smartphones. These soft clients allow users to make voice or video calls over the internet, often using built-in speakers or headsets. They work well for desk-based users in quiet, stable network environments.

But frontline workers like nurses, technicians, and warehouse staff don’t work at desks. In environments like healthcare and manufacturing, teams face:

• High ambient noise
• Intermittent or congested Wi-Fi
• Rugged, fast-paced, or hazardous conditions
• The need for fast, hands-free, and immediate voice communication

In these settings, soft clients fall short. They can drain battery life, drop calls due to unstable connections, or simply be too cumbersome to use in motion. And they’re often running on devices not purpose-built for voice.

The Solution: DECT as a Frontline Extension of Your UC Stack

Far from being a legacy solution, modern IP-DECT systems have evolved to support today’s UC needs. When paired with Microsoft Teams integration, DECT handsets allow organizations to extend enterprise voice to the frontline without sacrificing the performance, security, or manageability that IT expects.

With Teams-integrated DECT devices like Spectralink’s S Series, IT leaders can:

• Extend Teams calling to mobile, loud, or challenging environments
• Avoid issuing redundant devices or relying on consumer smartphones
• Support voice-critical workflows with crystal-clear quality and better battery life
• Maintain control over call quality, usage, and security from a centralized platform

It’s not a workaround; it’s a smart extension of your UC stack built for how real work gets done.

Why It Works: The Best of Both Worlds

Modern DECT solutions offer the mobility and voice reliability that deskless teams rely on, along with the UC integration and centralized control that IT requires.

According to DataHorizzon Research, the enterprise DECT phone market is projected to grow from $3.5 billion in 2023 to $5.8 billion by 2033, reinforcing that DECT is far from obsolete—it’s adapting to meet new enterprise demands.

With Teams-certified handsets and centralized visibility through platforms like AMIE® (Advanced Mobile Intelligence for Enterprises), Spectralink enables:

• Native access to Teams-based voice features
• Seamless communication between frontline and office-based staff
• Scalable deployment across multiple sites
• Real-time monitoring of call quality, device health, and usage

This is where UC and mobility strategies converge with voice at the center.

Spectralink Makes It Possible

At Spectralink, we don’t just integrate with Microsoft Teams; we’ve built one of the most robust, deeply embedded DECT + Teams Phone solutions on the market. Our S Series DECT handsets are fully certified for Microsoft Teams SIP Gateway and are engineered specifically to bring Teams voice to the frontline with the clarity, reliability, and durability that deskless environments demand.

We work closely with Microsoft’s engineering teams to ensure seamless compatibility, optimized call quality, and ongoing alignment with Teams platform updates. That collaboration means our customers benefit from the most reliable and future-ready DECT experience available for Teams-centric organizations.

With AMIE® for IP-DECT, IT teams gain centralized visibility and control, empowering them to monitor call quality, manage devices remotely, and scale deployments without guesswork. It’s everything you need to confidently extend your Teams strategy far beyond the desktop.

Ready to bring Microsoft Teams to the frontline without compromising performance? Talk to a Spectralink expert and see how our DECT + Teams solutions were built for how your workforce really works.