As I recall from DL's explanations at the SHMings that I attended EAD was not a matter of time. It was a matter of pecking order. There were catagories of vendors and the first company in each catagory had to pay got one fee, and the second a higher fee, and the third a still higher fee. It also seemed to me that each catagory had a different starting fee based on sales numbers of the offending company/catagories. They even had a chart with names of all the companies at one meeting, but it was only projected onto the wall/screen for about a minute. ( no recording or photographs during the meeting please............)