You can get hosting anywhere. That is right, every student seems to offer web hosting these days. But not all hosting providers are created equal. What is the difference? Keep reading....
 

Most small "hosting providers" resell someone else's services. They do not own the servers, and have no control over the servers. If you need something, they will submit a trouble ticket on your behalf to the "next level technical support" just as you would do. From there it may have to travel even further to real administrators, who often support hundreds of servers per person, do not give their direct phone number and do not care whether you have an emergency or not. We've been there until we created our own network. For many years now we've been in control and our clients are happier than ever.

Most large hosting providers are too expensive or too slow. Yes, you can get a level of service comparable to ours and the reliability of the network like ours and North American based technical support, but usually for a much higher price  for comparable service. Often you still have to deal with multi-tier support, where each level has limitations on what they can take care of, which slows down response time in case of an emergency.

What to look for. Make sure that you're not comparing apples to oranges. For example, two companies may have identical hardware, but one may pack it with 100 times more accounts per server, which would make everything work much slower. There could be two identical networks, but one is connected very close to the major backbone(s) while another one may be connected through a long chain of traffic resellers, which significantly affects response time. Also one provider may outsource technical support to someone off-shore who can only chat with you online while another one may have real live staff here in North America, available on the phone.

Why are we different?

• We own our servers and other network infrastructure. We are the only and final authority managing our servers and have 100% control over everything. Because there is no "second level" support all issues are dealt with immediately and directly.
• We maintain very strict security and have state of the art firewall protection, more than just a retail box.
• Our network is connected to the largest Internet backbones with little overhead in between . This allows your pages to travel shorter distances between your web site and your visitors, which makes response time faster.
• Our servers are powerful and modern.
• Our servers are not overcrowded. We have a very small number of web sites per each server. This allows your pages to load faster.
• We have real technical support. Not just a chat or answering service or "e-mail-only" support or "web-based-only" trouble ticket system. In case of a problem you will deal with a live person directly.
• We do not outsource technical support off-shore where operators may write English words but many are far from comprehension standards you would expect. We speak English very well. More importantly, we communicate with you the way you do.
• Our servers are monitored by a third party from several locations on every continent every 3 to 5 minutes. If any server's response becomes less than perfect we are paged within a minute or so and we get on it right away. That is why we can fix a problem before you even know about it.
• We provide a fully managed hosting. It means that if you need to change something, you do not have to learn all the technicalities, you do not have to find your way through complicated control panels or read detailed manuals. The only thing you need to remember is our number: 604-GET-HELP. Call us, tell us in plain English what you'd like to change (or e-mail if you wish) and we will do everything for you.

To find out more about our Web Hosting Division please click here to visit www.SmartTechHosting.com