Hands on: Gradwell Wave review
This review first appeared in issue 357 PC Professional Edition.
UK-based Gradwell has been in the communications business for more than 25 years and its Wave cloud VoIP The service will appeal to small and medium-sized businesses seeking a smooth transition from traditional analog systems. Deployment is a breeze. Gradwell manages the process for you and pricing is easy to understand as all you need to worry about is your monthly landline minutes and cell phone What you need.
Wave offers three packages, all of which offer the same call-handling capabilities and Wave desktop and mobile apps. The Wave 100 plan costs £7.50 per user per month and provides 100 minutes of talk time per month; Wave 1000 starts at £10.50 for 1,000 minutes; and Wave 3000 starts at, you guessed it, £15. It offers 3,000 minutes of talk time.
Since Gradwell hosts Wave, reliability is guaranteed Amazon Web Services (AWS) will create new instances as needed to handle growing demand. Wave is deployed on three AWS sites in different geographical locations, so redundancy is also covered.
Gradwell handles all onboarding by creating your main admin portal account, assigning phone numbers, and adding a basic set of users based on your requirements. A landline can be added to your order and comes pre-registered to your account so you just plug it in.
The Wave Management Portal provides an overview of account usage and provides easy access to all core functionality and call routing services. To add a new user, you simply enter the email address used to send the invitation, set a password, and decide whether to grant them administrator rights or just make them a Wave user.
Direct Inbound Dial (DID) numbers and available desk phones can be assigned to each user, and you can choose to enable voicemail, activate inbound and outbound call recording And set up call forwarding to external numbers or other Wave users. Multi-factor authentication can be enabled, and when users activate their account they receive a personal portal as well as Windows, macOS, iOS and Android Softphone.
The Wave user portal is simple, with the option to retain an outbound CLI, access voicemail, assign a busy light field (BLF) to the desk phone screen menu, and view contact lists. Making and receiving calls requires a softphone, which we install on Windows 10 and 11 desktops and iPad.
The softphone offers the same functionality as the portal and adds a dialpad, recent calls list, and access to settings like notifications and sounds. Gladwell has been deleted videoconference A few years ago this was all provided by softphones, now it’s handled by its separate Teams+ service, which costs £2.50 per user per month and allows users to make and receive calls and run VC sessions directly from the Teams desktop app .
As you’d expect from such a mature product, call handling features are extensive, including hunt groups with multiple routing steps, conference calls, pick-up groups, and automatic routing based on calendar or bank holidays. The call queue informs callers that they will be recorded, plays hold music and shows them a series of custom messages, while Wave’s interactive voice response (IVR) service allows you to record custom voice prompts, upload WAV files, or use Wave’s default prompts.
Gradwell’s Wave provides an easy-to-deploy cloud hosting VoIP solution with sophisticated call handling capabilities. Very affordable with its flexible price plans, micro businesses will find Gradwell’s new PSTN alternative bundle attractive, as it starts at £9.50 per month and provides everything you need, including broadband connectivity, to easily move to VoIP.
