Pretty much yes, a VOIP call through say Skype (or any other Cloud platform) that has an exit in Australia would appear as an Australian based phone call even if the caller was actually in China or Russia or some other location other than Australia. Currently these callers buy a range of Australian numbers (they are generally bulk acquired by the VOIP platform and sold to the users of their services but you can also have your number ported to them). There is a fee the VOIP providers (they are termed a Carriage Service Provider or CSP for short) pay for these numbers just the same as other providers like Telstra or Optus have to. They have to pay in this case in Australia, ACMA as the fee collector and allocator of the blocks of numbers. It is in no way a financial obstacle to the VOIP provider as they can get blocks as needed so they just charge the user and then ask for the numbers if necessary if they don’t already have some on hand.
The VOIP service then sets up a gateway that identifies and routes the call so that if you wanted to ring a number the call would hit their VOIP service gateway then the number you dialled would be identified as to which “real number” it belongs and then be converted to a digital signal and then sent back to the real device (phone or computer) to be answered by the user of that number. When a VOIP user dials out the gateway then links into the telephone system and then the number dialled rings. It appears and is for all intents an Australian call.
ACMA currently under the legislation is not prohibited from selling those blocks for use by overseas users so the CSPs (Carriage Service Providers) can then sell those numbers to anyone anywhere in the world. This is what needs to change.
If you or anyone would like to check which CSPs have a number or block of numbers allocated to them you can check at:
https://www.thenumberingsystem.com.au/#/number-register/search
For the yearly number allocation costs see:
https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2017C00284
(for most numbers we would be concerned with the cost is currently $35 per annum)
