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eduroam Hot News - May 2012

Android version of eduroam Companion released - Janet is pleased to announce the release of the Android version of the eduroam Companion app. To download go to: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.ja.android.eduroamcompanion

April News

New Joiners April - University of the Highlands and Islands, Coleg Ceredigion, Kent Public Service Network joined the UK eduroam federation and University College Falmouth has relisted, bringing total membership to 175. University of the West of England now has an operational service.

March News

New Joiners March - University of Derby and the Swansea Metropolitan University joined the UK eduroam federation, bringing total membership to 171. Institute of Cancer Research, University of the Arts London, Birmingham City University, University of Worcester, the Science and Technology Facilities Council and AQL all announced operational eduroam services, bringing total operational members to 129.

eduroam use at a new all time high - usage of eduroam for inter-organisation roaming reached a new high with 85,000 user devices authenticating over the national infrastructure during February.

February News

Next eduroam training dates - eduroam Fundamentals, May 9th 2012 and Implementing eduroam at your Organisation, May 10th 2012 Southampton. Book Now

eduroam available on Greyhound coach routes - the trial of eduroam on three Greyhound coach routes is progressing well. Stats indicate that several hundred coach travellers use the service every day. Users on the London - Glasgow, London - Southampton - Bournemouth and Cardiff - Swansea routes can benefit. eduroam of course has the advantage over most transport companies' free Wi-Fi services of not requiring registration before use.

January News

eduroam Companion App released - eduroam users can now more easily locate eduroam-enabled sites thanks to a new app for the iPhone and iPad. The app 'eduroam companion’ helps users to locate their nearest eduroam point by visualising the central database of eduroam-enabled facilities on a map and provides information that the user will need in order to connect to the service. For further information. The App can be downloaded free from iTunes. An Android version is under development.

Three more organisations are now offering operational services - Bath Spa University, Dumfries and Galloway College and Glasgow Caledonian University provide Home and Visited services, bringing the total of operational participants in the UK to 117.

'FreeRADIUS Demystified' Seminar pre-Networkshop - we will be kicking off Networkshop 40 with a seminar on Tuesday morning 'FreeRADIUS Demystified'. This will comprise an introduction to FreeRADIUS, the basics, logic flow, best practice using virtual servers, logging, using unlang for filtering and realm checking, forward look at FR3 followed by a series of 4 - 5 ten minute 'rapid-fire' slots presented by members of the community.

If you would like to participate in the rapid-fire section of the seminar and share any FR tricks and techniques you have used in your own FR implementation we'd like to hear from you. Please e-mail the eduroam service manager

January Joiners: the New Year has seen a flurry of joining activity - London South Bank, Bournemouth University, Lewisham College, Kirklees College and University Campus Suffolk have all registered to provide eduroam. We look forward to helping them with their deployments over the coming months.

The number of organisations participating in eduroam has also been swelled by the separate registration of the institutions that comprise the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. East Malling Research, John Innes Centre, Institute for Animal Health, Babraham Institute and Rothamsted Research are now listed individually.

Previously published eduroam news (follow this link to the archive)

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Key Facts about eduroam

• The eduroam service provided by JANET in the UK is a federated service that enables JANET connected organisations to offer high quality secure network services for visitors from other eduroam-enabled organisations - without the need for guest account management, saving IT Support workload. There are now 175 registered UK organisations. (Where you can use eduroam).)

• Authenticated logon services can be provided over Wi-Fi, wired connection and from designated guest workstations - giving full access over JANET to other JANET-connected organisations and the Internet.

• Access to the national eduroam infrastructure and the JANET eduroam support service is free of charge allowing the service to be offered to guests free of charge. Participating organisations must implement RADIUS but in many cases organisations which already have 802.1X infrastructure can provide a service at nil additional expense, otherwise the only cost is for a RADIUS server and integration.

• Users log on at ANY full-service eduroam network using own username and password, the same as on their home network, for all sites they visit – without having to refer to the IT department of the visited site.

• Organistations may offer eduroam as a 'Home' and/or 'Visited' service. With a Home service, users can gain authentication at other eduroam sites they might visit (ie the Home site acts as an identity provider). Visited service sites provide an eduroam guest network that supports users visiting from organisations that provide a Home service. The idea of such a flexible approach is to be as inclusive as possible and to allow organisations to implement the type of service that suits their policies and local infrastructure/technical expertise.

• All eduroam-connected users (visitors or local users) experience securely authenticated straightforward access to full JANET network services - giving access to the Internet, home organisation networks via VPN, web mail etc., and permitted resources on the local eduroam network.

• The JANET service forms part of the eduroam federation which includes participants in many other countries – extending usability of the service throughout Europe(zoomable map) and around the world.

Why implement eduroam - is it for my organisation?

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