What is a "Certified Response Point Service Provider?

A question came in this week to the Redmond team that we hear every now and then -  "What is a Certified Response Point Service Provider?"

First, some background: since the SP1 release the Response Point team has worked with Tekvizion, a 3rd party testing firm in Plano, Texas to technically certify SIP Trunking Service Providers for Response Point. SIP Trunking firms work with Tekvizion, independently from Microsoft, and run tests on their network services with Response Point systems at Tekvizion. If a firms services pass the Tekvizion testing criteria, a report is issued and passing firms are "certified". Does this mean that only certified Service Providers work with Response Point? No, not at all as many Service Providers work with Response Point. The value of the certification though is that the partner and the customer will know that the certified Service Provider's services will work correctly eliminating many service issues, down-time, installation problems, etc. Service Providers that come through this certification process have invested (there is a $ cost involved and it takes time) in Response Point and understand the inherent QoS that they can bring to partners and customers.

Microsoft has certified the following VOIP providers to work with Response Point out-of-the-box. Note that this list will grow over time as Service Providers continue to certify for Response Point:

Up to date information on Response Point Certified Service Providers can be found here: https://www.microsoft.com/responsepoint/product-information/voip-providers.aspx