This is one of those funny things. Years ago, the FCC talked about charging a spectrum fee. That's what they called it. The NAB objected. They screamed and shouted about it for a long time, and the idea went away. Then Congress decided that the FCC had to pay its own way. So there already were regulatory fees that they charged to cover the basic cost of filing for your license. Sort of the fee you pay when you renew your car registration or driver's license. So since they're already charging that fee, some smart bean counter discovered that they could simply increase the regulatory fee as much as they wanted. In that way, they got the benefit of the spectrum fee without actually creating a new fee. Amazing how things happen.
