Well, then your "point" is dead wrong. IP is not "the Internet," and there are vast systems across the world that use IP that do not have Internet connectivity. (And for very good reasons.)
Public IP. Just to be really clear, I'm suggesting public internet-connected real-world reachable (sans firewall considerations) IP... Not just a private IP network.
There is no private IP network that most people in Australia can connect to just for phone calls, nor am I aware of anyone supplying such a service without requiring an actual internet service.
It's not at all like communism in that the idea has and does work very well in practice. Your particular service may not, but if you're suggesting you switch to the U.S. system, where in most areas you get one broadband ISP, take it or leave it, I guarantee you that things will be much worse. If you're proposing something else, well, make it known. But I can tell you right now that if you think that separate last-mile providers is a bad thing, you are utterly and completely wrong. Your problems lie elsewhere.
I'm not comparing this to the US. I'm comparing it to how things used to be in Australia, which was arguably better, and very few people were locked into a single provider. Services were declared so that Telstra had to provide access to competitors. Of course, dirty play ensued such that Telstra often found ways to lock them out, but the wholesale cost was still required, so in the end, you got the ISP of your choice, and Telstra carried the signal. And the ISPs constantly upgraded their services where they could, which put Telstra under pressure to also compete. It was a good example of how the free market is supposed to work.
I am arguing how it was working *before* the NBN was reasonable. IMHO, the new system introduced enforced market failure. The old system still let people compete.
So I'm comparing Australia before and after NBN, not comparing Australia to the US model.
Well, that's just confusing since many (probably most) RFC 1918 networks are connected to the Internet (through the magic of NAT), including the very system I'm using right now (and probably yours, too). Not to mention that there are also plenty of non-RFC 1918 systems that are not Internet-connected. Just say "private network."
I just use it for private internets, and to be fair, where it is implemented like that, most people tend to follow RFC1918 in practice in Australia. Sometimes they make mistakes, but generally it was an error and not intentional.
And while most phone systems use RFC 1918, they still require an Internet to run over. You can't use private internets end-to-end.
As a somewhat simplified test, if you can make an SSH connection to github.com, you're connected to the Internet.
That's not a great test. It would infer that if you had a firewall rule to prevent that, you're not connected to the Internet.
I am inferring that, were there not firewall rules to prevent it, most of these phones could talk to the Internet.
In practice also, it's amazing how many of these IP Phones connecting to SIP servers use 8.8.8.8 for the DNS server, so I would think that also counts -
Likewise, even if Github were contactable by the phone, that wouldn't necessarily infer that the phone requires an internet connection.
I think its reasonable in this case to state that if connection to the Internet is a requirement ( ie, the service will not work without this ) then it's a requirement, whether private internets are involved or not.
Well, that's a) beside the point, since plenty of telephony has been running over IP for ages, and b) there are other protocols besides that. Just say "layer 2" if that's what you mean. Or at least use a term that's listed on Wikipedia.
No, as PLLs are often Layer 3 also. Especially in Australia. So are Layer 1 PLLs, especially where Government was concerned. We're a bit different like that. Also, it's really common to use SIP to TRUNK converters here to maintain old services, as well as E1 over IP. Less common now, but was a common transition technology.