BOISE, Idaho — He sees you when you're sleeping and he knows when you're awake, but for one day only, you too can watch Santa’s every move through NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command's tracker. It's in large part thanks to Boise-based software company, Cradlepoint.
“NORAD is a very secure facility, so of course they don’t want to use their infrastructure to support over 1,500 volunteers that answer the phones and respond to emails and they get over 140,000 inquiries from kids every year wanting to know where Santa is,” Cradlepoint’s Chief Marketing Officer, Todd Krautkremer said.
This is why NORAD approached Cradlepoint 12 years ago for help on providing additional resources and infrastructure when children call asking about where Santa is.
“We provide them with a separate cellular router in our net cloud service to allow them to set up a completely separate and isolated network using cellular technology to allow all of their volunteers to talk to children as they call and respond to their email messages as they come into the NORAD Santa tracker facility,” Krautkremer said.
NORAD’s Santa Tracker began more than 60 years ago by mistake.
“It all started with a misprint of a number for the Sears store locally in a magazine and a child ended up calling NORAD by accident and the officer that answered the phone played along with the child who was looking for gifts from Santa and wanting to know where Santa was, and this turned into the tracker program that they now run at NORAD every year,” Krautkremer said.
This year, as children around the world track Santa and his reindeer's journey, they'll be able to do so more easily thanks to Cradlepoint's upgraded technology. The upgraded technology that Cradlepoint is providing is helping kids find out where Santa is faster than ever.
“It's moving from what you might take a very slow connection from your house to now streaming at gigabit speed, so it's 10 times faster, and really helps them serve the children through all the different forms they serve them today,” Krautkremer said. “It's really exciting, it's probably one of the more gratifying things we do.”
To find out where Santa is, click here.