The FCC has issued a report and order to eliminate the regulatory fee required to obtain a license for the GMRS.
FCC eliminates GMRS regulatory fee
How do you feel about this? Does this signal the end of the GMRS license altogether or is it just a temporary reduction in the overall fee until the continuous automatic rise of the application fee eventually overtakes the current cost of a license?
This same rule eliminated the Amateur Radio regulatory fee for a vanity license. I don’t see any correlation with an end to licensing. The license fee will go down to $65.
With all the FCC personnel changes, I doubt the fact finding proposal years ago will go anywhere. Bill Cross… the engineer of that proposal, himself is retiring soon, if he hasn’t already done so.
In my opinion, any GMRS activity would follow an entirely new process.
With the reduction of FCC offices and the resulting poor enforcement, my guess is they’ll cut GMRS loose sooner or later and let it go the route of CB.
I used the ULS to apply for my GMRS license this morning (9/10/15). When I got to the confirmation page, in the middle of the page in bold type was the following:
“No Application or Regulatory Fees are Required”.
Received my license this morning - WQWI903 
This was an error. All applications after about 3:30 pm correctly charged the $65 fee.
It is expected in 10-14 days the licenses will be revoked for nonpayment of fees. How these applications cleared the redlight review is beyond me.