On my way to work the other day and … have you heard? Telstra’s free calls to Santa are back for 2024. They’ve even started to decorate a number of their payphone booths to advertise the initiative.

Simply rock-up to any payphone and dial #HOHOHO (i.e. #464646) to be connected to Santa. This initiative has been running for a few years and makes for a great opportunity to educate the young about the location and proper use of payphones. This is especially valuable as local and national calling from payphones have been made free for a few years turning payphones into a public service.

Compared to previous years, I’d have to say that the decorations have reached a new high. Bright, colourful and appealing … hard to miss! It’s something I’ve had a lot of fun playing with in prior years, but it seems the news articles about this haven’t yet hit the press yet – the only reference I found seems to be last years’ press release published 10th November 2023. Looks like they’ve let the cat Santa out of the bag sack!

Where’s Santa Hiding?

Looking slightly suspicious with a magnetic pickup and Zoom H2n audio recorder in hand, I walked up to the payphone and dialled #464646 into the keypad. Amidst a lot of 50Hz hum and its harmonics, I could make out …

… that Santa must be hiding in NSW this year although the geographic nature of telephone numbers have since been weakened with the death of landlines, this number is not a regular one. For one, it starts with a “5” which is something I rarely see. Another is how many repeating digits there are – two fives, three fours! They also managed “420” in there, perhaps unintentionally.

For those wanting to contact the Telstra Santa from the comfort of their own home, the number to call is:

(02) 5564 4420

or internationally

+61 2 5564 4420

This seems to be valid at this time and should hopefully remain unchanged throughout this Christmas season (unless they reprogram their payphones). This is a different number from previous years.

What’s On The Line?

As of 9th November 2024, it’s a little early for Christmas – after all, they only announced last year’s Telstra Santa on 10th November. As a result, when you call the number, you will hear this:

Alternate Link: santa-not-ready-2024-goughlui-com.mp4

[Ring]

Ho, ho, ho! The direct line to my workshop will be open any day now. Remember to stay on the nice list. Ho, ho, ho!

Conclusion

Telstra’s Santa isn’t quite ready yet at this time … but it should be any day now before it goes live. At least I’ve managed to find its location already, but I can’t be sure they won’t change it before it goes live. I hope everyone has fun and enjoys it in the lead-up to Christmas … perhaps we’ll see an even more sophisticated generative AI this time around. I look forward to it going live and I’ll hopefully have some time to try it and document it in another blog post before it goes away …