Anywhere Learning Happens: The eduroam Global WiFi Access Service
A conversation with eduroam community leaders Saira Hasnain and Brett Bieber
"Anywhere a student is learning, we can get them connected to eduroam." —Brett Bieber, chair, Internet2 eduroam-US advisory committee
As the eduroam WiFi access service grows globally, so does its capacity to serve the changing needs of the research and education community.
Why does ubiquity matter? CT asked Brett Bieber, the assistant vice president of Client Services for Information Technology Services at the University of Nebraska and chair of the Internet2 eduroam-US advisory committee; and Saira Hasnain, the associate vice president and deputy chief information officer at the University of Florida and an Internet2 eduroam-US advisory committee member. Here, these two eduroam-US community leaders tell us why and how eduroam is working to be anywhere students are learning.
Mary Grush: Let's start by asking, what is eduroam?
Brett Bieber: It's a global WiFi roaming service that allows educators, researchers, and students to connect seamlessly and securely through any of its participating sites.
Grush: …and, it's worldwide?
Bieber: Yes, eduroam originated in Europe in 2002, arrived in the U.S. by 2009, and, with a long lineage of partnerships and collaboration among technology organizations it has matured over the years into a large, reliable network access service available to educators and researchers around the world.
So, to give a couple quick examples of its use, eduroam is of great value to us at the University of Nebraska when we need to provide connectivity for our faculty who are traveling, even internationally; or, we may have distant collaborators — e.g., researchers or students — who need to connect with each other over the Internet to accomplish their work.
Using eduroam simply eliminates most of the IT complexities and obstacles for educators, researchers, and even students who may be working remotely or under the challenging conditions we've just described. In fact, once your device has been configured for the first time, eduroam will always securely authenticate and log you instantly onto the Internet, making connections very easy: You just open your laptop or device, and you are connected!
Grush: Besides remote connectivity, could eduroam services also be used locally, for more general campus applications?
Bieber: Yes! As a matter of fact, for the University of Nebraska System we provision all students, faculty, and staff with eduroam, right from the start, universally — we are "eduroam native" and that is the primary SSID we broadcast. We've committed to eduroam service for all — not just for our traveling researchers or remote users. So we're prepared for change and a future with eduroam. I think that's also the case at Saira's institution, the University of Florida… is that the case, Saira?
We are "eduroam native" and that is the primary SSID we broadcast. We've committed to eduroam service for all.
Saira Hasnain: Yes, eduroam is our primary SSID. We, too, are eduroam native, for all our campus users. And I can give you some examples of use cases and projects that leverage eduroam to benefit both our campus users as well as other agencies or entities — such as libraries, museums, municipal public spaces, and other nonprofit interests within the region. In fact, at the University of Florida we are expanding our user experience to leverage very innovative uses of eduroam, including various forms of outreach to our surrounding communities.
Grush: So, just to verify how all this works: Internet2 is maintaining the eduroam access service in the U.S., for its membership and for other research and education-related entities that choose to become eduroam subscribers; while in other countries or territories, internationally, institutions and organizations obtain eduroam access services through roaming operators in their own region. Then all this comes together on a global scale.
We'll sometimes hear eduroam referred to as a global network, but more precisely, and technically, it's a global WiFi access service. Is that correct?
Bieber: Essentially, yes. Internet2 operates the eduroam-US service and provides administration, provisioning, and the underlying infrastructure that enables federated, secure, and privacy-preserving WiFi access for eduroam subscribers in the U.S.
We'll sometimes hear eduroam referred to as a global network, but more precisely, and technically, it's a global WiFi access service.
I think it's important to emphasize that typically, every country or territory with eduroam service is going to have its own national roaming operator that participates in the global eduroam federation. Ours here in the U.S. is Internet2 — that's our gateway here in the states to connect to and use the services of eduroam.
Of course, that means that if your home institution is an eduroam subscriber and supports its local users for eduroam, the user experience can be as seamless as just opening up your computer and being instantly connected. And you may then collaborate with eduroam users locally or anywhere they're connected.
So, the vision of organizations like Internet2 globally is what ultimately powers eduroam and sets it up for success, if you will. Steadily, eduroam is reaching toward ubiquity, and that's one big factor that will ultimately allow it to continue to expand services to users all around the globe.
Steadily, eduroam is reaching toward ubiquity, and that's one big factor that will ultimately allow it to continue to expand services to users all around the globe.
Grush: Then it sounds like growth itself is a tremendously important factor in the long-term capabilities and successes of eduroam.
Hasnain: That's true.
Grush: Your own institutions are Internet2 members and eduroam subscribers, so what kind of statistics do you see for your institutions?
Bieber: Our statistics as eduroam subscriber institutions include monthly high-level summary information (not information that identifies specific users). We'll see analytics that answer questions about where our users are traveling, or where our guests are from…
At the University of Nebraska we see a lot of international guests who are connecting to eduroam from our home, University of Nebraska facilities; and we see a growing number of our faculty who are traveling abroad and connecting remotely as well, from points around the globe.
Grush: Do you have any statistics showing how the overall, global eduroam effort is doing and how it has grown over time?
Hasnain: Now, it's probably not going to be possible for us to characterize comprehensively, how eduroam has grown overall, over time. But let's just point out a few of the more compelling general statistics. There are now more than 10,000 eduroam hotspots around the world, across at least a hundred different countries. And impressively, in 2022, eduroam logged more than 6.4 billion individual authentications around the globe.
Impressively, in 2022, eduroam logged more than 6.4 billion individual authentications around the globe.
Bieber: As for the U.S., we are reported as second in the world, just behind Brazil, for the number of service locations. For eduroam-US, we're showing 2,996 eduroam hotspot locations to date.
And one thing we know, and can safely say, is that regarding eduroam adoption within higher education in the U.S., it's a very well-saturated market. The majority of higher education institutions that are Internet2 members subscribe to eduroam. Right now, in total, there are over a thousand institutions in the U.S. that subscribe to eduroam.
These include many different types of institutions — universities, colleges, research facilities… It's notable that those institutions that were early adopters of eduroam were performing research at the R1 level and, seeing the value of providing eduroam services, they have up to this point made up the largest percentage of our primary participants.
Grush: So today, do researchers still make up the predominant group of on-the-ground users for eduroam-US? I'm guessing that use patterns might change over time.
Bieber: From the subscriber institutions of eduroam-US now, I'd say the predominant group of users we see would be researchers who are collaborating remotely with colleagues at other institutions. And I'd strongly agree, use patterns are changing. Changing patterns will certainly show more administrators, staff, students, and others… expanding even to users from affiliated local and regional groups and organizations. And importantly, we see the growing adoption in K12, which I'll talk about in a minute.
Grush: Saira, your institution, the University of Florida at Gainesville, has undertaken some very innovative programs with eduroam. Could you tell us a bit about that, and how the Gator community is stepping up to innovate with eduroam?
Hasnain: Of course.
We have several projects, some of which we have been working on long term. For example, one of the first things we did, more than six years ago, was to approach the Gainesville Alachua County Regional Airport Authority to arrange to offer eduroam at the airport. That project would expand eduroam services into the community and allow us to become innovators beyond the campus. It is a type of "smart city" resource that became very popular and well-utilized.
Among the advantages we immediately enjoyed was the safety and security for our students and faculty traveling to and from Gainesville. They do not need to use the usual, publicly exposed networks for connectivity when traveling through the airport. That includes many young applicants coming to Gainesville for their campus visits. And, to mention usability again, this is a very straightforward, seamless experience for our students, faculty, and potential recruits.
In another project of interest, we approached the City of Gainesville Regional Transport Service to work out a plan to equip area buses with eduroam hotspots — with the idea of providing constant connectivity in all the bus transportation services that students, faculty, and staff use around our campus and within the greater Gainesville area. This ambitious project will ultimately include a fleet of about 125 buses and will fully cover all schedules throughout the region. We are still working on some of the details, such as clarifying the responsibilities of the city versus what the university will maintain, but we are getting close, including the execution of a successful pilot with just a few roaming buses, and I can tell you it's very exciting.
Grush: That project seems to be a literal implementation of the "roaming" aspects of eduroam!
Bieber: All kidding aside, this project genuinely explores the potential of eduroam, and it shows how we can make connectivity the easy part of some very innovative projects.
We can make connectivity the easy part of some very innovative projects.
Hasnain: Another very practical and important project we have in place is to check the strength of all the signals propagated around campus, both inside and outdoors, and in our various project areas off campus. We want to ensure that everyone gets usable and high-quality service, anywhere we extend eduroam.
Grush: Brett, you said you'd talk about connectivity for K12 — how is that taking hold? Is eduroam expanding into K12 and other areas of education that might not have seen a lot of adoption of eduroam thus far?
Bieber: Any education institution that can become a member of Internet2 can sign up to be a subscriber of eduroam, and that is certainly how we saw our R1s getting started in the past. But I think what's really worth noting now is that in the past few years, within the U.S., we've seen a stronger adoption of eduroam in new areas, including community colleges, various other types of higher education institutions, and perhaps most interestingly, in K12 schools. That kind of expansion, I'm hoping, will ultimately complete the picture in a really important way: Anywhere a student is learning, we can get them connected to eduroam. We're seeing great progress in K12 adoption, and that's something I'm really excited about.
Think about every place a student might learn, whether it's at their primary or secondary school, or postsecondary institution… at their community college, or maybe their university… or at libraries or museums… The ability to get them connected anywhere they are learning is a powerful thing. So, when you can get a community to rally behind a solution like eduroam, you enable access like never before, anywhere it's needed.
Grush: Brett, you have a program there in Nebraska called ConnectEd Nebraska that helps enable connectivity in a lot of those "anywheres" — can you tell us a little about it?
Bieber: Sure. In Nebraska we've been able to partner with a broadband service provider to broadcast eduroam in a number of different nonprofits around the City of Lincoln. This partnership gives us a unique connection to the community through several diverse nonprofit programs. So beyond libraries and museums, as we've mentioned, many programs that have a mission to serve the community — take Boys & Girls Club, for example — can also provide access to eduroam through ConnectEd Nebraska.
Grush: How will Internet2's eduroam Support Organizations program help adoption and deployment?
Bieber: Thus far, five leading state and regional network organizations in the research and education communities of Oregon, Connecticut, Utah, Arizona, and Nebraska have committed to support the expansion of eduroam in the U.S. with training, resources, and a model for scalable deployment. The collaboration of these organizations is a powerful force that continues to expand the reach of eduroam.
Throughout these communities there's a virtually unlimited number of people in the eduroam Support Orgs willing to collaborate, who just want the best for students. And more schools are beginning to see the value of seamless connectivity, where you open your laptop and you are immediately connected. If more schools work towards default connectivity, and whole institutions become eduroam native, we'll be a lot closer to the kind of ubiquity that grows a great service.
If more schools work towards default connectivity, and whole institutions become eduroam native, we'll be a lot closer to the kind of ubiquity that grows a great service.
Grush: Which states will be the next to join the Support Organizations program?
Bieber: We'll find out soon! Internet2 is working with its member community now to solicit proposals by the end of April for the next cohort of eduroam Support Organizations. Those will be announced later this spring.
Grush: It must be exciting for both of you, to watch and to help all these amazing programs take hold. I'd like to ask you both about your roles serving on the Internet2 eduroam-US advisory committee, and how that committee informs and guides eduroam adoption.
Hasnain: I can speak from my perspective as a member of the advisory committee — Brett is the chair, so he might have a somewhat different perspective. But in serving on the committee, there are two primary objectives I have.
The first is to learn from the community, what they are doing with the opportunities presented by eduroam — to learn what's happening, especially with broad-based initiatives even wider than the expectations individual institutions might have for their own participation.
The second objective is to observe the University of Florida — a very large, land grant institution with a presence in 67 counties plus a Washington, D.C. office — and bring back ideas to the committee; ideas to improve eduroam deployment and describe things that might help the committee understand how to provide better management, tools, and capabilities for our far-reaching University of Florida constituents and eduroam users in general. Bottom line, we want to help the committee identify what can move eduroam into the future.
Bieber: For my role as the committee chair, it's very exciting to be a part of a vibrant community that's passionate about advancing this technology and expanding the adoption of it.
It's very exciting to be a part of a vibrant community that's passionate about advancing this technology and expanding the adoption of it.
As a part of our oversight, the advisory committee connects with Internet2 about the features being implemented within the eduroam Federation Manager portal, which is where every eduroam subscriber within the U.S. logs in to configure details about how they are connecting.
As another part of our oversight, the committee has a responsibility to stay on top of technology changes, which are constant. We need to be aware of what's happening in the wireless space and in the industry. We must be up-to-speed with newer technologies and practices, and convene our committee of leaders and experts to talk through all the implications, stay on track with what the research and education community needs, and anticipate the changes we can advocate for as we guide eduroam into the future.