What is eduroam?

eduroam (education roaming) is a secure, worldwide roaming access service developed for the research and education community. Participating K-20 faculty, teachers, students, and staff enjoy uninterrupted Wi-Fi across all educational sites in their region and around the globe.

What is WiscNet’s involvement?

As Wisconsin’s eduroam Support Organization (eSO), WiscNet plays a singular role in expanding eduroam across the state. The value of eduroam grows with its ubiquity — when it’s available in as many schools, libraries, museums, and public spaces as possible, it becomes a powerful, statewide service that enables seamless connectivity for students, educators, and community members wherever they go.

As Wisconsin’s eSO, WiscNet’s responsibilities include:

  • Provisioning eduroam for new K12, library, and museum participants

  • Providing ongoing first-level support

  • Maintaining an inventory of participating sites

  • Collaborating with other eduroam support organizations to share feedback and ideas across the community

Through this work, WiscNet helps make eduroam a truly statewide resource — strengthening connectivity, mobility, and community learning throughout Wisconsin.

Interested in eduroam?

Hotspot near me

What to know

  • eduroam is based on the most secure encryption and authentication standards in existence today. Its security by far exceeds typical commercial hotspots.

    eduroam requires the use of 802.1x which provides end-to-end encryption to ensure that your private user credentials are only available to your home institution. The certificate of your home institution is the only point you need to trust regardless of who operates any intermediate infrastructure.

    Be aware though that when using the general Internet at an eduroam hotspot, the local site security measures at that hotspot will apply to you as well. For example, the firewall settings at the visited place may be different from those you are used to at home, and as a guest you may have access to fewer services on the Internet than you have at home.

  • eduroam allows any user from an eduroam participating site to get network access at any institution connected to eduroam. Depending on local policies at the visited institutions, eduroam participants may also have additional resources at their disposal.

    The user credentials are kept secure because eduroam does not share them with the site you’re visiting. Instead they are forwarded to the user’s home institution, where they can be verified and validated.

    The system uses a network of servers run by the institutions, and the participating National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) to securely route these requests back to your home institute. All this happens seamlessly and virtually instantly – all thanks to eduroam.

  • By using the eduroam service, you indicate that any information you provide is true, accurate, current, and complete. Further, you agree to use the eduroam service in a lawful manner and shall not:

    • Encourage any illegal, abusive or similar activities that interfere with the business of Merit Network or any other party.

    • Attempt to bypass or break any security mechanism or component of the eduroam service. • Use the eduroam service in a manner that poses a security or service risk to WiscNet or any of its users.

    • Test, decompile, or reverse-engineer the eduroam service or any equipment or services related to the eduroam service for any reason.

    • Use the eduroam service in a manner that subjects WiscNet or any third party to liability or damages.

    • Launch or facilitate, whether intentionally or unintentionally, a denial of service attack on the eduroam service or any component of the eduroam service, or engage in any other conduct that adversely impacts the availability, reliability, or stability of the eduroam service.

    • Transmit any material that contains viruses, trojan horses, worms, or any other malicious, harmful, or deleterious programs.

    • Use the eduroam service in a manner that violates any policy that WiscNet provided or made available to your organization.

    • Engage in any unsolicited advertising, marketing, or other similar activities.

    • Use the eduroam service to harvest or otherwise collect information about others, including email addresses or phone numbers.

    • Use the eduroam service to engage in or in connection with fraudulent activity.

    • Violate or facilitate the violation of any local, state, federal, or foreign law or regulation, including laws and regulations regarding the transmission of data or software.

    • Take any action to participate in, encourage, or promote any activity prohibited under this Acceptable Use Policy or any other agreement to which you are bound in connection with use of the eduroam service.

    • Transmit any material that infringes the intellectual property rights or other rights of third parties.

    • Remove, obscure, or alter any notice of copyright, trademark, or other proprietary right appearing in or on any component of the eduroam service. eduroam AUP (4/2018)

    • Transmit any material that is libelous, defamatory, discriminatory, or otherwise malicious or harmful to any person or entity.

    • Create a false identity or otherwise attempt to mislead others as to the identity of the sender or the origin of a message.

    • Use the eduroam service, or any component of the eduroam service, in any manner that violates any applicable international or domestic law.