Anywhere Learning Happens: The eduroam Global WiFi Access Service
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.