NC State is now a participating institution in eduroam, a global wireless network designed for research and education communities. 

Because the service is relatively new to NC State, many students have not heard of it yet.

   “I just read an email about it yesterday,” said Nitin Sharma, a first year master’s student in computer science. “I haven’t actually used it much, so I don’t know what it does.”

   Eduroam, which gets its name from education roaming, is a secure wireless network that can be used at any participating education and research community worldwide.

These communities include not only college and university campuses, but also elementary, middle and high schools, according to eduroam’s website. Eduroam started in Europe, but has since grown to include 69 locations.

According to the eduroam website, the service was designed to make it easier to access the Internet when traveling to different educational campuses. 

Many students like the idea of a more convenient wireless system.

   “It’s so aggravating having to put in my login every time I come to campus,” said Lateesha Mordecai, a junior in psychology. “If it would just automatically connect, that would be awesome.”

The biggest advantages of this system are security and the ability to log in anywhere, according to Greg James, associate director of Data Networking. 

Users will not have to worry about the guest login credentials typically required to connect when visiting a campus and instead will able to connect to the wireless Internet automatically when at participating locations, James said. 

Institutions won’t have to waste time and energy connecting visitors to the wireless Internet since the connection should be automatic, according to James.

In order to enroll in the service, users need to only login with their Unity ID and password on the NC State Office of Information and Technology website.

The service is already up and running, James said.

After becoming enrolled, users are able to automatically connect to the wireless Internet at participating locations all over with world, according to the eduroam website.

Our current wireless system is more susceptible to hackers than the more secure eduroam system, and the Internet traffic isn’t exposed with eduroam as it is with our current system, James said. 

Students seem to be generally in favor of a more secure wireless system. 

“I think that would be really interesting, especially a more secure system, because cybercrime is a very real concern for me if I have to do anything public on my laptop at school,” said Sarah Hyder, a senior in extension education. “I don’t know how exactly it would work but it sounds like a pretty interesting thing.”

Eventually, OIT plans to discontinue use of the NCSU SSID and use only the eduroam system, according to the OIT website.

However, until then, the eduroam service will not affect the current availability of wireless on campus, according to Networking Specialist James Nesbitt.

The service will use the same wireless access points, but a different SSID, Nesbitt said.

Some students don’t see the need to make changes to the current wireless system. 

“I’m not really concerned with security,” said Muaath Alenezi, a sophomore in civil engineering. “I think most educational institutions have good security on their wireless systems.”

The service could be especially good for students participating in study abroad, according to the eduroam website. 

Students would not have to worry about locating hotspots and logging in because the wireless Internet should connect automatically if the student is at a participating location, according to the eduroam website. 

The only disadvantage is working out difficulties with getting the program successfully installed on all devices, James said.

Once those problems are worked out, there aren’t really any disadvantages to this system, according to James and Nesbitt.

“It provides campus with a secure way to use wireless Internet,” James said. “Any way we can provide security is a huge advantage.