Eduroam celebrates one billion roaming authentications

It’s not often you celebrate a billionth “birthday” so to be able to celebrate two at the same time must be pretty rare. On 17 May 2016, eduroam clocked up two amazing milestones – registering both one billion roaming authentications (either in-country or international) since the beginning of the year and the one billionth international authentication (when users are connecting from outside their home country) since the service was launched.

eduroam – an international success story

Since its launch on 1 September 2008 as a GÉANT service, the aim of eduroam has been to help the research and education community collaborate both nationally and internationally. From its early beginnings with a handful of European universities, the service has grown to cover over 70 countries and tens of thousands of wifi hotspots on every continent around the globe. Now researchers can travel to each other’s university and can instantly and securely connect to eduroam without the need for guest identities, sharing passwords or insecure webpage logins.

What is most amazing about eduroam is its seamless and virtually invisible operation – truly the mark of a successful service. Put simply, it just works!

eduroam stands as an example of the success of international collaboration.  Experts from around the world have all contributed time, effort and expertise to ensure that research and education can benefit from advanced technology.

eduroam and GÉANT

The eduroam service is a large-scale collaboration between hundreds of institutions, the majority of which own and operate the service’s infrastructure. The national and international coordination of this infrastructure is undertaken by the Roaming Operators (ROs) and, within Europe, by a central eduroam Operational Team that is funded by the GÉANT (GN4-2) Project.

eduroam was pioneered by the GÉANT research and education networking community in Europe. The GÉANT task force on mobility and network middleware – TF-MNM – and the GÉANT Project work together and with relevant industry and standardisation groups to find and share solutions related to eduroam technology and security.

The GÉANT organisation coordinates and supports the Global eduroam Governance Committee (GeGC), which sets technical and organisational standards for the service and authorises compliant Roaming Operators to provide eduroam around the world.

GÉANT Project

The GÉANT project is co-funded by Europe’s NRENs and the EU. As part of the GÉANT 2020 Framework Partnership Agreement (FPA), the project receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 731122 (GN4-2).