eduroam @ World Exchange Plaza (WEP)
Free, secure Wi-Fi access for students, researchers, and staff of higher ed organizations
Opportunity for World Exchange Plaza (WEP)
- Seamlessly and securely connect more than 82,000 uOttawa and Carleton University students, researchers, and staff when they visit WEP, in addition to visitors from more than 106 countries around the world
- Strengthen WEP’s brand as an innovative downtown destination where people work, meet, dine, gather, and connect
- Promote Ottawa as a leading innovator among Canadian municipalities for rolling out secure, seamless access to students and researchers
- Improve the security of public Wi-Fi access at WEP by reducing reliance on open, un-secure networks
What is eduroam?
eduroam (education roaming) is the secure, global roaming access service developed for the international research and education community, available in more than 100 countries and 17,000 locations worldwide.
eduroam allows seamless Wi-Fi connectivity for students, researchers, and staff from participating higher-ed institutions – whether they are on their campus or visiting other participating institutions and sites. This creates a virtual campus, anywhere students and staff dine, work, or meet.
What are the Benefits of eduroam?
For students, research, and staff of educational and research institutions, eduroam provides seamless connectivity on a trusted wireless network at hundreds of participating sites around the world. If they can access their home institution’s network, they can access the eduroam network!
For municipalities and other wireless service providers, eduroam helps create a virtual campus where local and visiting students and researchers can continue their research and studies anytime, anywhere. And because the eduroam network is only accessible to students and researchers with valid credentials from their home institutions, the security risks of open Wi-Fi networks are mitigated.
How does eduroam Work?
When a user tries to log on to the wireless network of a visited eduroam-enabled site, the user’s log-on request is sent to their home institution through CANARIE, which verifies the user’s credentials at their home institution and sends the result to the visited site. If this authentication is successful, the user is granted access to the eduroam Wi-Fi network.
Who Operates eduroam?
In Canada, the eduroam service is managed and operated by CANARIE, a member of the global eduroam Wi-Fi federation. The eduroam federation consists of an operating organization in each member country that authenticates and authorizes access on behalf of that country’s post-secondary institutions. CANARIE currently supports more than 10 million eduroam logins per month.
The eduroam network is broadcast where students and researchers gather, learn, and study, including university and college campuses, libraries, and research hospitals. In many parts of the world, eduroam is also broadcast on public transit and at coffee shops and airports. In Canada, the City of Mississauga was the first Canadian municipality to roll out the service throughout its public spaces, including parks, transit stations, and city facilities.
Who is CANARIE?
CANARIE connects Canadians to each other and to the world. Our programs equip Canadian researchers, students, and startups to excel on the global stage.
For more information, please visit: www.canarie.ca/about
Case Studies:
Municipality Use Case: Edmonton Public Library
- Brittany Watt, the Systems Analyst for EPL, said she found the process of setting up eduroam straight-forward. Within hours of connecting the library branches to eduroam, she noticed that hundreds of logins had already been made, which meant that the quiet, behind-the-scenes technology was already working correctly.
Municipality Use Case: City of Mississauga
- Feedback from the City of Mississauga, which rolled out eduroam in all its public spaces in 2017:
“The first week it was in place, students from Australia, Germany, the UK, the US, and throughout Canada connected to it without any advertising from us or our partners.” “It was a low-cost to no-cost investment for us because we already had the infrastructure in place; this one connection facilitated so much opportunity for us.”
– Shawn Slack, Director of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer, City of Mississauga