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What is eduroam?
It is a federated service that provides seamless access to WiFi for staff and students of the education & research community worldwide. This is a foundation service and is provided as part of the membership charges to HEAnet clients.
It is founded on a cooperative effort and mutual trust between user institutions around the globe, confirming user credentials and taking the headache out of getting online when visiting another educational, research or public institution within the eduroam federation.
- Service Profile www.eduroam.ie SLA eduroam National Gateways SLA Managed Radius Service
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An Ever-expanding Resource
In Ireland, many institutions including Universities and Institutes of Technology offer connectivity via eduroam. This amounts to over 80 eduroam hotspots. The benefits and simplicity of federated authentication means that some institutions are turning to eduroam to provide primary WiFi connectivity for staff and student bodies.HEAnet strongly encourages institutions to facilitate their own roaming users, and to extend their WiFi service to visiting eduroam users, by participating in eduroam. Such reciprocal services support and strengthen the cooperative spirit that exists within the international academic and research community. HEAnet provides detailed support to organisations in Ireland setting up eduroam.
In August 2015, the HSE announced that eduroam will be rolled out to staff and students at Irish hospitals managed by that body, further underlining the perceived value and importance of the service.
CAT Tool
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Client Needs
Academic staff and students need to get online quickly and easily when roaming. However, it can be a burden for visited sites to have to create new accounts, protect user credentials, and manage what may be one-time users. A smoother way of accommodating visiting users was required.
eduroam allows a roaming user to connect via the “eduroam” WiFi network at a visited site using their home institution credentials. This gives them secure
and reliable access to the internet with an absolute minimum of time and effort. eduroam is available at locations in over 75 countries worldwide.How it Works
eduroam relies upon the existing WiFi infrastructure at each participating site. Participating sites can use the eduroam CAT (Configuration Assistant Tool) utility to distribute eduroam profiles to their users. This offers users a simple and convenient means of enabling eduroam access for their laptop, tablets, smart phones, etc. Users can download their profiles directly from cat.eduroam.org. The downloaded profile will configure your device appropriately for eduroam. An app is available from the Google Play Store to facilitate setup of Android devices.
This set-up is required once only per device. Whenever an eduroam hotspot is encountered, an authentication request is instantly relayed to your home institution to confirm your eligibility to use the hotspot.
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From a Service Desk perspective, eduroam is a dream. The (CAT) tools are essential, as manual installation on a huge range of devices just isn’t feasible.
Students are able to self-help, and a huge amount do the installation themselves. I was incredibly pleased with the results.
Before enabling eduroam, foreign students would be expecting it at CIT, and frustrated not to find it.
Aidan McDonaldHead of IT Operations, Cork Institute of Technology -
Contact HEAnet
Support for eduroam is provided through the HEAnet NOC.
You can contact the HEAnet NOC by emailing noc@heanet.ie or by calling 01-660-9040, Monday to Friday, 09:00 – 17:30.
The HEAnet NOC is committed to ensuring every client receives a consistent, responsive service with an emphasis on minimising client disruption.