HEAnet has today (15th December) announced the successful rollout of eduroam Wi-Fi roaming to students in 492 new locations across the country.
The new eduroam Wi-Fi locations were introduced as part of the eduroam Everywhere initiative, which aims to enable eduroam at as many locations as possible beyond the campus walls to other locations that are easily accessible to students.
eduroam Everywhere initiative is pioneered by HEAnet in close cooperation with government departments and local authorities across the country. The new 492 locations bring the total number of eduroam locations to over 500 across the country, including universities, institutes of technology, libraries, community centres, town centres, transport services, retail outlets, sporting and conference venues.
eduroam is a Wi-Fi service which enables students, researchers and staff from participating higher education institutions to securely access the internet at their college/university and whilst visiting other participating institutions. Wider access to eduroam Wi-Fi allows many more students to connect to safe, reliable Wi-Fi close to their home or place of study. eduroam helps students to continue learning on the go and is already widely used by students across the country, with over 500,000 successful eduroam authentications completed in the last 12 months at the new eduroam locations.
Minister Simon Harris for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science commented on the announcement: “The rollout of eduroam is a great example of an initiative aimed at reducing the digital divide through technology.
Many of the new locations include areas where broadband access is a major challenge for students, and so I would like to thank HEAnet for their continued work in tackling this challenge.
HEAnet has now successfully completed a rollout of eduroam Wi-Fi to 490 new locations across the country, meaning now many more students now have access to safe, reliable Wi-Fi close to their home or place of study.“
Minister Harris recorded a short video to announce the successful rollout of eduroam across the country. Click below to watch it.
Ronan Byrne, HEAnet’s CEO, said: “We would like to thank Minister Simon Harris for his continuous support. The Minister has enabled us to develop partnerships with government departments and agencies across the public sector, which has enabled the successful expansion of the eduroam Everywhere programme.
HEAnet are proud of the progress made with the eduroam expansion and I would like to thank and congratulate all my colleagues involved in its successful rollout as well as other departments and stakeholders involved in this initiative.
Moving forward, HEAnet will continue to seek to reduce the digital divide for all students, as part of enabling Ireland to reach its digital ambitions via the provision of national and international connectivity for Ireland’s education and research sector.”
A full report summarising the eduroam Everywhere initiative is now available on HEAnet’s website. Click here to read it.
Notes to the Editor
What is eduroam?
eduroam is a Wi-Fi service which enables students, researchers and staff from participating higher education institutions to securely access the internet at their college/university and whilst visiting other participating institutions.
eduroam is a global service for the academic community. Having started in Europe, eduroam has rapidly expanded throughout the research and education community around the world and is now available in more than 100 countries worldwide. The national operator for eduroam in Ireland is HEAnet, Ireland’s National Education and Research Network.
What is the difference between eduroam and free public Wi-Fi?
Public Wi-Fi can be found in popular public places like airports, coffee shops, shopping malls, restaurants, and hotels — and it allows you to access the internet for free. The user is required to ask for the Wi-Fi password and enter details which will allow them to authenticate and connect to the internet. As they move from outlet to outlet, this process will be required each time.
eduroam ensures that once a student authenticates on the eduroam network once, every time they are in an eduroam-enabled location, regardless of location worldwide, their device will authenticate, which makes it easier, faster and more secure to use.
