BYOC (Bring Your Own Carrier) is an architecture pattern that allows businesses to separate their communications platform from their voice carrier. Rather than using the platform provider’s built-in carrier (which typically adds a retail markup), BYOC lets you connect a third-party wholesale carrier — such as IDT Express — to platforms like Twilio, Microsoft Teams, Genesys, or Plivo. BYOC preserves all platform features (APIs, integrations, developer tools) while routing actual voice traffic through a carrier of your choosing, typically at significantly lower per-minute rates.
BYOC (Bring Your Own Carrier) is an integration model that lets you use a communications platform’s features while routing your actual voice calls through a wholesale carrier of your choice. Most CPaaS and UCaaS platforms bundle their own carrier, which carries a retail margin. BYOC lets you ‘decouple’ the platform layer from the carrier layer — keeping your Twilio API integrations or Teams phone system while sending and receiving calls through a carrier like IDT Express at wholesale rates. The platform handles call logic; the carrier handles call delivery.
Twilio’s BYOC feature (called ‘BYOC Trunks’) lets you connect an external SIP trunk to Twilio’s programmable voice infrastructure. You create a BYOC trunk in the Twilio console, point it to your IDT Express SIP credentials, and assign it to your Twilio phone numbers or programmable voice applications. Inbound and outbound calls route through IDT Express’s network rather than Twilio’s default carrier, while all Twilio call control APIs, webhooks, and Studio flows continue to work exactly as before. The result is Twilio’s developer platform at IDT Express’s wholesale voice rates.
Savings depend on your current carrier’s rates, your call destinations, and your volume, but BYOC customers typically reduce per-minute voice costs by 40–60% compared to default platform carrier rates. CPaaS platforms charge retail termination rates; wholesale carriers like IDT Express charge carrier-to-carrier rates, which are significantly lower especially for international traffic. For a contact centre handling hundreds of thousands of minutes per month of international traffic, BYOC savings can run into five or six figures annually.
BYOC is supported by a growing number of communications platforms. IDT Express is certified for BYOC integration with Twilio (via BYOC Trunks), Microsoft Teams (via Direct Routing), Genesys Cloud (via Genesys Hybrid BYOC), and Plivo. Other platforms with BYOC or bring-your-own-carrier capability include Vonage, Bandwidth, and various contact centre platforms. The specific integration method varies — Twilio uses SIP trunks; Microsoft Teams uses Direct Routing with a certified Session Border Controller.
