Founded in 2001, ISQ Solutions is an award-winning provider of shared Windows web hosting and domain registration based in Toronto, Canada. Its data center is housed in Toronto in one of the largest internet access points in North America. Hosting plans use ISQ Solutions’ cloud platform for flexibility and scalability.
Features and Ease of Use
ISQ Solutions features two levels of hosting on its high-performance cloud platform. The server equipment used is Dell server hardware running the Windows Server IIS operating system. Both shared hosting plans share these basic features:
- 99.9% uptime guarantee
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- SSL certificate available
- Daily website backups
- 24/7 technical support
The ISQ Solutions value plan and business plan both have the same set of basic features while they vary in their data allowances and one or two other aspects.
The value plan comes with 2,000MB of cloud storage, 100GB of burstable data transfer, and 1GB of email storage. The business plan increases these amounts of data to 5,000MB of cloud storage, unlimited data transfer, 2GB of cloud email storage. Both plans feature: ASP.NET 4.5, MVC 4, Silverlight 5, PHP 5, and MySQL 5. The business plan lets customers opt for SQL 2008 instead of MySQL 5 if they desire.
For ISQ Solutions customers, MerchantSecure shared SSL certificates from Geotrust are available at an additional cost. These are standard 128-bit encrypted certificates enabling your website to appear with “https.” Private SSL certificates are allowed as well. Customers can have their own third-party certificate installed by customer support via the help desk.
The data center where ISQ Solutions houses its servers is located in Canada’s most connected telecommunications building, which houses over 150 telecom companies. This building has nine different fiber optic networks and 7,000 strands of fiber. Security is provided round-the-clock and fire and water suppression systems are in place along with backup fuel generators. All of these precautions are there to ensure a near constant server uptime of 99.9%.
Pricing and support
Pricing for ISQ Solutions’ shared hosting plans is fair. It offers different billing cycle lengths depending on customer preference and a three-month discount is applied to annual contracts. For monthly billing, the value plan price is similar or lower than monthly plans from top North American providers, while the monthly business plan price is a little higher than average.
These plans become more competitively priced when an annual plan is chosen and customers are in essence only paying for nine of those 12 months. This brings ISQ Solutions’ prices to a very competitive level and in line with other top hosting providers.
Payment for plans can be made 24-hours a day on the website via credit card or PayPal.
To assist customers, there is toll-free phone support available in the U.S. and Canada from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. EST. You can access 24/7 technical support through the helpdesk, which includes a knowledge base and tutorials. I filled out the online form in the evening to inquire about sales, but unfortunately, I did not receive a response.
