Have you ever heard of eduroam? The secure, world-wide roaming access service developed for the international research and education community to address the increasing need for fast and secure Internet connection everywhere.
With over 6.4 billion international authentications to date stretching across 106 countries, eduroam is expanding in Africa where National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) are going beyond the traditional campus connectivity aiming at bridging the digital divide. Uganda, South Africa and Kenya are leading the way and connecting users off campus at bus stops, libraries, cafes, and hospitals. NRENs are at the helm of Africa’s digital transformation and eduroam is a tangible solution to bridging the digital divide.
We wrote a paper that serves as a guidebook detailing the technology behind eduroam, the benefits and the challenges for its four main target groups in Africa: users, institutions, NRENs and municipalities. The call for action is to further deploy eduroam hotspots and provide connectivity everywhere on the continent, including remote areas and unprivileged communities where students, researchers and teachers are present.
Authors: Silvia Fiore and Leïla Dekkar (GÉANT); Kennedy Aseda (KENET)
Read and download the paper: eduroam in Africa.
The paper was published by IST Africa on IEEE Xplore: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10187742
Visit the eduroam website to discover additional resources and case studies.