Wi-Fi That Follows You: Why We Went All In on eduroam

Our path to eduroam started in 2017 with a conversation with Jeff Billings, then the IT director at Paradise Valley Unified. That conversation led us to add Sun Corridor Network, Arizona’s nonprofit research and education network, as one of our network providers. It also connected us with people who would help us think differently about where our students and staff could get online.

Later, at a conference, I talked with Derek Masseth, Sun Corridor’s executive director, about eduroam and about Nebraska, where it was reaching K-12 schools nearly statewide. What stuck with me was the idea of students connecting automatically wherever the bus went. I wanted that kind of opportunity for our students too.

We went on to make eduroam the primary network at Vail School District. Our technology team and the people at Sun Corridor helped turn those conversations into something students and staff use every day.

What eduroam is

Schools, colleges, universities, and libraries that participate all broadcast the same network name: eduroam. Set up a device once with your home institution, and it joins automatically at any participating location, in more than 100 countries and territories.

The part that matters most for a district is where the login goes. When one of our devices connects at a partner site, that site does not check the login itself. The request is passed back to Vail through eduroam’s national system, and we confirm whether the device is one of ours.

When a password is involved, it travels in an encrypted tunnel between the device and its home institution. The site being visited cannot read it. It only provides the connection.

Making it our primary network

We worked with Sun Corridor to set it up, as one of the first K-12 districts in Arizona to offer eduroam. Then we made a bigger decision. Many organizations treat eduroam as an extra network for visitors. We made it our primary network. As I told Sun Corridor, “We decided to go all in.”

The credit belongs to our technology team. They turned a good idea into something students and staff use every day without thinking about it.

Sun Corridor Network tells the fuller story in its feature, “It just works”: How an Arizona school district simplified connectivity with eduroam. My favorite moment in it belongs to one of our assistant superintendents. At a meeting at Mayo Clinic’s ASU campus in Phoenix, others waited for guest Wi-Fi codes. He opened his laptop and was online. His summary: “It just works.”

Passwords out, profiles in

eduroam depends on one setting: before a device sends its login, it should confirm it is really talking to its home institution’s server. Without that check, a fake hotspot using the eduroam name could try to collect logins.

eduroam also fits a change we describe in Account Creation Is Where Trust Starts. On Wi-Fi, including eduroam, we have moved away from usernames and passwords. The device proves it belongs on the network, using a managed profile, a set of settings we install ahead of time. That replaces a password that could be shared or phished.

A managed profile can also take care of that check. It can tell a device which server to trust, so the check is built in ahead of time instead of left to a pop-up that someone taps through in a hurry.

Beyond our buildings

We have also engaged Pima County, which is preparing to add eduroam to all of its public Wi-Fi offerings.

Here is what that means in practice. Adding eduroam to public Wi-Fi does not hand out eduroam accounts. It lets people who already have credentials from a participating school, college, university, or library connect automatically. Anyone without those credentials still needs a regular public network.

Why it matters

What excites me is how each participating library or public building can extend that access beyond school. A student finishing homework at a participating library or a teacher at a meeting across town can connect the same way they do in class, with Vail confirming their access. A visiting university researcher can have the same experience, backed by their own institution.

It also shows how the network grows. Each site that signs on makes eduroam more useful for everyone who already carries credentials. Through Internet2’s eduroam-US Advisory Committee, which I joined this year, I get to learn from the states and regions growing it. I write here as Vail’s CTO, not on the committee’s behalf.

Sun Corridor helps districts join even if they are not Sun Corridor districts. They are a good place for an Arizona district to start the conversation. I am grateful to Derek, Gabe, and the rest of the Sun Corridor team for their help along the way.

The vision is easy to describe: public libraries, community centers, airports, and every school. We are not there yet, and we are still in the early days for Arizona. Pima County’s public Wi-Fi will be a real step, and each new site after it moves us closer.

For me, this has been a reminder of what can grow out of a conversation and a team willing to try something. If you are thinking about this for your district, I would start with the places your students and staff already go and the organizations you could work with. The technical setup matters, including making sure devices trust the right server, and those relationships help make the network useful beyond any one building.

I would love for more of our students and staff to have the experience our assistant superintendent described in Phoenix: open the laptop, get connected, and get on with what they came to do.