Our clients often ask that their site is hosted at a Canadian hosting providers. Some are government organizations that have a Canadian requirement, and some are simply some patriotic and just like the idea of having their site hosted locally. And practically speaking, if most of their visitors are from Montreal or Quebec, a site hosted locally will just load faster.
At first, we weren't sure what to tell our clients since most Canadian hosts seemed either sub-par or overly expensive, at least compared to their US competitors.
So imagine our excitement when about a year ago, we heard about iWeb, a Montreal based hosting company. They're reliable, well-established (traded on the TSX since 2004), and most importantly, local--see Montreal Tech Watch's description of a tour of iWeb's data center on Nun's Island. Oh, did I mention their rates are super competitive? Ddedicated servers start at $59/month, and they regularly have sales that are nothing short of mind blowing-- as low as $29/month for your own Celeron 1.6ghz / 1GB RAM / 160GB / 1500GB bandwidth.
Although we've had some trouble with the sales process (i.e. convincing them to bill us in Canadian dollars), the overall experience has been great. We've recently ordered our fifth dedicated server from them in the last 9 months, and have recommended them to a number of clients and associates. And given that Evolving Web is now integrating Apache Solr search into all our major Drupal deployments, it's safe to assume we'll be needing more of their servers soon!
Disclaimer: I'm writing about them now for three reasons. First, they've indicated an interest in sponsoring the next Drupalcamp. Second, they're currently in the middle of a great 30 day sale where each day at noon they offer a dozen servers discounted by 50% or more. The prices for one day's batch might be $120/month and another day may be $39/month, but in each case you get an amazing box for the price. The best deals are gone in 10-15 minutes, so be sure to check http://iweb.com 12 PM sharp.
Finally, as part of their sponsorship of last week's WordCamp Montreal, they're giving away a year's worth of hosting to the participant who gets the most votes on this page.
I would be most grateful if you were to vote for me (Alex Dergachev) on the following page http://blog.iweb.com/en/2009/07/iweb-microsoft-canada-vote-race/2799.html
Oh, and if you have any experiences you'd like to share about iWeb or other dedicated hosts in Quebec, please post a comment here.
I think it would be very helpful to have a balanced discussion about the various options we have!
Cheers,
Alex Dergachev, co-founder, http://EvolvingWeb.ca