[BC] putting phone calls on the air

[Donna Halper]

>Peter said--
>
>Like (I suspect) the US, it was a regulatory thing here - from two 
>aspects, the privacy issue of people's phone calls being recorded or 
>put to air without their knowledge/consent, and the safety issue of 
>uncontrolled connecting of customer provided equipment to the phone line.

So why did the FCC insist on those loud beeps? And when were they 
done away with?  I thought that perhaps there a pick-up problem with 
early microphones, such that callers sounded technologically 
distorted... maybe that was whe the FCC didn't want calls live on the 
air?  These days, of course, you just tell people they are being put 
on the air live--  "Joe from Kokomo,  thanks for calling. You're live 
on the [insert name of talk host here] Show."  Why couldn't they have 
done it like that way back when?