What is "eduroam"

eduroam (education roaming) is an international roaming service for users in research, higher education and further education. It provides researchers, teachers and students easy and secure network access when visiting an institution other than their own. Authentication of users is performed by their home institution, using the same credentials as when they access the network locally, while authorization to access the Internet and possibly other resources is handled by the visited institution. Users do not have to pay for using eduroam.

The service is provided at the local level by the participating institutions (universities, colleges, research institutes etc.). At the national level it is organised by National Roaming Operators, which are in many cases the National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) of their countries. At the global level, the organisation of the eduroam service is under the auspices of TERENA, which is also the holder of the eduroam® trademark. The eduroam Architecture for Network Roaming is defined in RFC 7593.

In some countries, Internet access via eduroam is also available at other locations than the participating institutions, e.g. in libraries, public buildings, railway stations and airports.

In Belgium, Belnet uses the eduroam technology to provide a similar service to Belgian public administrations under the name govroam. A govroam service for municipalities in the Netherlands was launched in October 2013. govroam® is a registered trademark of Belnet.