The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) is once again teaming up with Cradlepoint to ensure always-on internet connectivity to help thousands of children track the whereabouts of Santa this Christmas.
NORAD is a binational U.S. and Canadian command charged with aerospace and maritime warning and aerospace control of North America as well as monitoring aerospace activity globally. Every Christmas, NORAD also takes up the mission of tracking Santa as he travels around the world.
This year, Cradlepoint is supplying NORAD with brand new AER2200 routers with Gigabit-Class LTE connection, all part of its NetCloud Service, ensuring NORAD’s volunteers won’t miss a single child eager to know when Santa will be in their part of the world.
NORAD started its Santa Tracking program 64 years ago after a misprint in a local newspaper led a child to call Colonel Harry Shoup – Crew Commander on duty at the Strategic Air Command – asking for Santa’s location. Today, NORAD has grown to 1,500 volunteers manning telephones and computers to answer 140,000 incoming calls and 2,800 emails from curious and hopeful children around the world. With partners like Cradlepoint, NORAD is now able to let children track Santa through new technologies including live streaming videos, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, NORAD apps, Amazon’s Alexa, and OnStar.
