Terms & Conditions

VoIP Fees

Because the VoIP industry is subject to government taxes and regulated by the Federal Communications Commission, there are several fees that Sun Communications is legally permitted to charge customers.

E911 fees

E911 Fees

Enhanced 911 (E911) fees cover the cost of ensuring that we meet the FCC’s VoIP regulations regarding the ability to locate a caller who dials 911.

The FCC mandates that providers must:

Provide 911 service as a standard feature of every plan, with no ability to opt-out
Transmit and route a 911 call to the appropriate emergency call center if emergency services cannot process the caller’s location or callback number
Obtain and provide emergency services with a customer’s physical location and callback number
Affirm that customers understand the limitations of 911 service

E911 fees also fund emergency response systems, and are charged per service line by the local and state government. Specific fees will depend on the customer’s state. Generally, they range in price from $0.20 to $2.00 per line. Users may also be charged for using 411 information services.

USF Fees

Number Porting Fee

Number Porting Fees

VoIP providers generally charge $10-$20 per ported telephone number.

(Also Known as: Local Number Porting or LNP Fees)

This is a one-time charge. which covers the cost of porting (transferring) local, fax, and toll-free phone numbers from past phone companies to the desired new provider. They are charged on a per-line basis.

These fees are not required by the FCC, and are set by your provider.

Sun Communications is only allowed to charge what it costs to port a number, but these fees may vary based on location and carrier.

Feder, State & Local Tax

Federal, State, and Local Tax

Virtual telephony companies are legally required to charge and remit customer taxes on the federal, state, and local levels.

The exact cost of telecommunications taxes will vary based on location as well as the specific type of service provided. However, many customers don’t realize that in some cases, the provider has control over how much it charges users for communication and use tax.

VoIP taxation may include:

Providers are no longer required to charge a public switched telephone network (PSTN) tax.

Gross Revenue Surcharge

The gross revenue surcharge covers the cost of federal and state taxation costs that providers (and all phone companies) are legally required to pay on their total revenue.

A customer’s gross revenue surcharge is their percentage of the taxes charged on the revenue they brought the provider.

Note that, while of course, tax laws payments are government-mandated, the gross revenue surcharge to customers is not.

Intercarrier Compensation

Interstate access charges are mandated by federal laws, while intrastate charges are managed on a local level.

Intercarrier compensation is fees that one carrier pays to another to make, send, and end telecommunications over their network.

The fees on your business phone bill will vary based on the location of the origination and termination of the call, whether the carriers are local, long-distance, or wireless, and type of call.

Intercarrier compensation is made up of access charges and reciprocal compensation.

Access charges are fees long-distance carriers pay to local service providers, allowing them to both make and terminate VoIP calls on a local network.

Reciprocal compensation, on the other hand, are charges relating to calls made in the same local area.

In most cases, access charges will be more expensive than reciprocal compensation.

Internet Infrastructure Surcharge

Early Termination Fees

The number-one cost to look out for is a provider’s early termination fee, (ETF) which is charged when a customer ends their relationship with a VoIP service before the contract is officially finished.

The fee will vary based on the number of users and the length of the contract.

If you don’t understand the early termination fee before signing a three-year contract, you could end up paying for two VoIP services, only one of which you’re actually using, for several months.

Usually, you’ll need to cancel the old service a minimum of 30 days before the next annual or monthly billing cycle to avoid being charged again. Because of this, you may wish to avoid an automated billing option.

In some cases, the new provider you’re switching to may be able to negotiate these early termination fees with your old provider on your behalf.

USF Fees

Number Porting Fee

Number Porting Fees

VoIP providers generally charge $10-$20 per ported telephone number.

(Also Known as: Local Number Porting or LNP Fees)

These fees are not required by the FCC, and are set by your provider.

Sun Communications is only allowed to charge what it costs to port a number, but these fees may vary based on location and carrier.

Feder, State & Local Tax

Federal, State, and Local Tax

Virtual telephony companies are legally required to charge and remit customer taxes on the federal, state, and local levels.

VoIP taxation may include:

Providers are no longer required to charge a public switched telephone network (PSTN) tax.

Gross Revenue Surcharge

The gross revenue surcharge covers the cost of federal and state taxation costs that providers (and all phone companies) are legally required to pay on their total revenue.

A customer’s gross revenue surcharge is their percentage of the taxes charged on the revenue they brought the provider.

Note that, while of course, tax laws payments are government-mandated, the gross revenue surcharge to customers is not.

Intercarrier Compensation

Interstate access charges are mandated by federal laws, while intrastate charges are managed on a local level.

Intercarrier compensation is fees that one carrier pays to another to make, send, and end telecommunications over their network.

The fees on your business phone bill will vary based on the location of the origination and termination of the call, whether the carriers are local, long-distance, or wireless, and type of call.

Intercarrier compensation is made up of access charges and reciprocal compensation.

Access charges are fees long-distance carriers pay to local service providers, allowing them to both make and terminate VoIP calls on a local network.

Reciprocal compensation, on the other hand, are charges relating to calls made in the same local area.

In most cases, access charges will be more expensive than reciprocal compensation.

Internet Infrastructure Surcharge

VoIP Fees to Watch Out For

Some providers grossly inflate their cost to increase their profit margin.

At Sun Communications, we don't use fees as a way to increase our profits.

Feature Add-on Fees

When evaluating a company, understand which features are a part of a bundled service plan and which ones are purchased a la carte.

In many cases, providers will offer what appears to be a great deal on a monthly plan, but attempt to hide the fact that the most important features must be purchased in addition to the base plan.

This means you could end up paying more to improve the cheapest plan than you would if you had initially selected the more expensive one.

Note that add-on costs for additional audio call minutes, storage space, and advanced call center metrics are standard.

RCIP Fees

Regulatory, Compliance, and Intellectual Property fees are not mandated by the government but are instead determined entirely by the provider.

These fees are designed to help the company pay for things like fraud prevention, trademark filing and patent/copyright protection, and compliance with federal and state regulations.

RCIP fees are often charged on a per-line basis, which means they can add up quickly.

Federal Program Fees

As stated above, VoIP service providers are required to pay regulatory fees for the Federal Universal Service fees, Telecommunications Relay Service, and more.

While these fees are not illegal, they are often another way for providers to cram additional fees onto an already high monthly bill.

Regulatory Recovery Fees

Similar to federal program fees, regulatory recovery fees also offset the cost of provider compliance with state, local, and federal telecommunications laws.

They may also include E911 system upkeep, covering the cost of filing and reporting requirements, and bookkeeping.

Administrative, Service, and Support Charges

While it’s normal to be charged a fee for online, texting customer service, and telephone support, providers also use the umbrella term “administrative charge” to tack on a monthly flat rate charge or additional fees that do not seem to cover a specific service.

This is especially common among resellers.

Providers should be able to adequately explain the reason for these charges, which are often used to offset government-mandated charges.

If these mysterious administrative charges are even more expensive than the monthly subscription cost, it’s a red flag.

Privacy Policy

This privacy notice discloses the privacy practices for Sun Communications Inc (www.suncommunications.com). This privacy notice applies solely to information collected by this website. It will notify you of the following:

What personally identifiable information is collected from you through the website, how it is used and with whom it may be shared.
What choices are available to you regarding the use of your data.
The security procedures in place to protect the misuse of your information.
How you can correct any inaccuracies in the information.
Information Collection, Use, and Sharing. We are the sole owners of the information collected on this site. We only have access to/collect information that you voluntarily give us via email or other direct contact from you. We will not sell or rent this information to anyone.

We will use your information to respond to you, regarding the reason you contacted us. We will not share your information with any third party outside of our organization, other than as necessary to fulfill your request, e.g. to ship an order.

Unless you ask us not to, we may contact you via email in the future to tell you about specials, new products or services, or changes to this privacy policy.

Your Access to and Control Over Information

You may opt out of any future contacts from us at any time. You can do the following at any time by contacting us via the email address or phone number given on our website:

See what data we have about you, if any.

Change/correct any data we have about you.
Have us delete any data we have about you.
Express any concern you have about our use of your data.

Security

We take precautions to protect your information. When you submit sensitive information via the website, your information is protected both online and offline.

Wherever we collect sensitive information (such as credit card data), that information is encrypted and transmitted to us in a secure way. You can verify this by looking for a lock icon in the address bar and looking for “https” at the beginning of the address of the Web page.

While we use encryption to protect sensitive information transmitted online, we also protect your information offline. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, billing or customer service) are granted access to personally identifiable information. The computers/servers in which we store personally identifiable information are kept in a secure environment.

If you feel that we are not abiding by this privacy policy, you should contact us immediately via telephone at 866-588-1113 or via email to support@suncommunications.com.