How time flies – it’s already November, which means Christmas is just around the corner and Telstra’s back with an annual event – Free Calls to Santa!

This campaign serves a number of purposes, not least, the education of kids as to how to access and use payphones. This year especially, there’s a few miniature payphones scattered about as well as a direct line in Telstra stores, just to make it a little more accessible.

While this service is undoubtedly targeted at children that still believe in Santa, it’s also become a rather interesting, sometimes funny and otherwise impressive display of what is possible when people are a bit imaginative with how they use technology. In recent years, it’s grown some artificial intelligence, before gaining some guard rails … so how will Santa respond this year?

Where’s Santa This Year?

People wishing to call Santa can go to a payphone and dial #HOHOHO (#464646) free of charge. But what if you’re not near a payphone, or not even in Australia? How will you ever get to Santa’s Workshop?

Since 2022, I’ve been tracking down where Santa’s Workshop is, but it seems that every year it’s been moving around on the telephone network. Through the magic of a magnetic pick-up and a willingness to seek out the truth behind Santa (otherwise known as a PCM recorder and the use of fast-fourier transforms), I’ve been able to decipher the DTMF tones dialled by the payphone to find its location on the telephone network. In prior years, Santa’s Workshop has been at (in E.164-format):

• +61 2 7908 6230 (in 2022)


• +61 3 4513 5044 (in 2023)


• +61 2 5564 4420 (in 2024)

Based on Santa’s evasive history, I fully expected the number to change again this year … so I rocked up to a payphone located in Stanhope Gardens Shopping Centre on 18th November (just days after its opening) with my set-up and …

… what a disappointment! Santa’s decided to stay with his 2024 phone number, but perhaps that’s a good thing. He mustn’t be getting too many nuisance calls then ;).

So if you’re looking to call Santa’s Workshop, as operated by Telstra, then dial:

+ 61 2 5564 4420

or (02) 5564 4420 (for locals, in a more familiar format).

A Sample Call

So, how’s Santa doing this year? Here’s a Sample Call based on silent input.

I’ve had to record this using a PCM recorder from the headphone jack of a mobile phone (so expect AMR compression, on top of AAC) as I no longer have any active VoIP services from which I can extract bit-accurate samples from.

The audio itself is, as the traditional telephone network defines it, of 4kHz bandwidth. So often nowadays, we are spoilt with wideband HD voice calls from mobile to mobile or using VoIP style services which can offer up to super-wideband. The difference is very obvious.

As for Santa himself, he seems to have taken on a more Aussie accent with a bit of New Zealander mixed in. His intonation is broader this year, sometimes getting unexpectedly high or low, but the voice is definitely more appealing being a bit less gruff. The call flow is somewhat similar to previous years, but as we will see, they have built up some more variations and increased the level of immersion – there is no jarring guardrail phrase this year. Unfortunately, it would seem that Santa is still a little slow – it takes about four seconds from when you stop speaking to when the reply is voiced, no doubt because of the need for the AI to generate its output first, before passing it to a text-to-speech engine.

My Supercut

One call is not enough, so I decided to place something like 30-odd calls to the service one day. This time, I did try to be a little funny, but I spent more of my efforts documenting the wide variations in the variable question segment – Santa’s really gotten good at asking questions and forming responses on-the-fly. But there is one case of what appears to be a programming error being caught as well.

Disclaimer: Any similarities in names is purely coincidental.Names are used to demonstrate how the system handles common names and do not refer to any person or thing, living, dead or otherwise.

The below supercut shows many of its capabilities when the caller does respond to prompts and contains some responses which may be both humourous or distasteful depending on your sense of humour. Listener discretion is advised.

A more in-depth analysis of each call phase with sample audio snippets and full transcript is provided below – especially handy if you can’t call Santa anymore (because it’s not 2025 anymore) or you’re interested in just what it is capable of.

Full Analysis

For this section, comments will be in coloured text while the script will be in black text with various effects in [square brackets]. Links are to audio snippets.

The call begins with the prelude that indicates the call is being recorded. Unlike previous years, there is now variety in this area, with four being the magic number rather than two or three in previous years. It would seem that I got the Esme version the least of all of these, but the sound design of having bleed-through background audio gives the impression you’ve called a call centre, which is a nice touch.

0 – Call Answer – Elsa Version

“Hello. Santa’s Workshop – North Pole. Elsa the Elf speaking. I’m helping Santa remember everyone’s Christmas wish list by recording this call. Please hold while I patch you through to him.” [Background Ringing Telephone] [Sound of Phone Being Put Down]

0 – Call Answer – Esther Version

[In Background: “North Pole”] “Greetings! Santa’s Workshop – North Pole. Esther the Elf here. I’m helping remember everyone’s gifts by recording this call. Hold the line, while I patch you through to the big guy.” [Background Ringing Telephone] [Sound of Phone Being Put Down]

0 – Call Answer – Ernie Version

[In Background: “’ello, North Pole”] “Hey there! Ernie the Elf speaking. You’ve reached Santa’s workshop. I’m helping Santa by recording this call. We wouldn’t want him to forget anyone’s wish list! I’ll patch you through to Santa now – please hold the line.” [Background Ringing Telephone] [Sound of Phone Being Put Down]

0 – Call Answer – Esme Version

[In Background: “’ello, North Pole”] “Hello there! Esme the Elf speaking. You’re through to Santa’s Workshop in the North Pole. I’ll be recording this call so Santa doesn’t forget anyone’s Christmas wish list. I’ll patch you through to him now – please hold.” [Background Ringing Telephone] [Sound of Phone Being Put Down]

A musical interlude and phone noises create the illusion of the call being transferred, which is a nice “magical” touch. As usual, Santa wants to know who he’s talking to, but unlike previous years in just omitting a name if no valid name is detected, it is replaced by an extra “lo” syllable