[jjav]

There is really no excuse for any network equipment to be sending anything at all to external parties, unless you've specifically subscribed to some service where it becomes necessary. Which the OP said they don't.

Let's be careful to not normalize this type of data exfiltration from equipment that's supposed to be yours.

[tinus_hn]

This case is not that, but for instance update services and time servers are defensible reasons to connect to external parties.