Hi Philippe,
1) Yes quite right, the eduroam-* worked well to resolve the issue however any visitor needed to configure their device so it was pretty un-user friendly. This operated probably 2007-08 when eduroam was first hit here so users were low in number and so was impact. Over time the cons for visitors having to manually config a new SSID outweighed the pro's of that name as there's just too many visitors. We moved back to just eduroam. This works but I'd seriously consider all other options first, or consider using it in just the area's of overlap. 2) Sharing Vlans has been discussed and agreed on with one of our neighbours and got halfway through design. The primary driver at that stage was internet costs, with some students recognising there is unlimited internet access just over the road as opposed to some really harsh restrictions on campus. Both institutions moved away from restricting data usage so that issue no longer exists. We actually haven't had too many reports of issues along our RF border despite buildings being 10m apart. But both us and our RF neighbours don't use eduroam as a primary so the border impact is limited. It would be worth noting that roaming between yours and an outside institution wouldn't be as smooth. Also unless you provide all your range the users will move networks, the ideal solution wouldn't see the client change IP. I think it's a good and reasonably simple solution, but might struggle to scale if required to go past a couple of institutions. 3) We looked briefly this last year as there's chance we'll be having eduroam throughout our CBD on the council owned free CBD wireless infrastructure. This means RF overlap for eduroam in a number of locations. IP mobility might be the best solution but comes with requirements like hardware.... And we are a fair way from fully understanding it all. That lack of a simple technical solution as well as ownership/costs mean this got put on the back burner..... but it's not forgotten yet. Hoping to kick the discussion off again late this year/early next. 4) The other solution we looked at for the CBD crowding was having our ISP host the termination point for the wireless networks, at least for the major institutions who use the same ISP and are also our national eduroam provider. So no matter which institution a user visits they end up on the same network which could be routed by the ISP or routed by the Institution. This would require quite a few changes and agreements etc and while no one said no the who time, cost and ownership factor meant it all goes to the backburner for a while.... Plus IP Mobility is probably still the better end result. We are about to go live with something similar operating in our hospitals. They won't federate to eduroam however there is high research integration between the Uni's here and our hospitals. We have hundreds of staff/students located and visiting hospitals. Health have been great in working with us to get a solution using eduroam. Essentially our own users will be routed directly to us through a fibre while all other eduroam users go out to the internet. It's all hosted by health in their datacentre, the setup costs was paid by the Uni's. I'm sure there were a few other ideas thrown around, I'll see if I dig anything up from the emails. Routing on source mac address was one.... But this was to deal with an issue where only 2 vlans would be available. One thing we were always trying to achieve with these is the ability to treat these users differently to off-campus so no need to VPN for most intranet services but perhaps not quite on-campus for some more secure intranet requirements. Essentially trying to keep the experience nicer for users. Regards Jason -- Jason Cook The University of Adelaide, AUSTRALIA 5005 Ph : +61 8 8313 4800 From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of Philippe Hanset Sent: Thursday, 23 July 2015 12:35 PM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] eduroam Advertising Hello Matt, Good question! (and hard to deal with) We have encountered 3 ways so far (if anyone has others, please share) to deal with the eduroam SSID overlap issue. (some refer to this overlap issue as "The Russell Square Problem" in previous eduroam presentations) 1) Have a SSID in the form eduroam-* (as Jason Cook highlighted in his response). It is accepted by the eduroam consortium but it is neither pretty nor convenient or expandable (read: multiple profiles on devices, user confusion, and as Jason mentioned it doesn't work well beyond one or two exceptions) 2) Share VLANs between institutions 3) Use IP Mobility solutions (many available, some proprietary, some standard) 2) and 3) require quite a bit of work in the background but generate a better user experience than 1) Philippe Philippe Hanset www.eduroam.us<http://www.eduroam.us> On Jul 22, 2015, at 10:07 AM, Nocifore,Matthew <m...@drexel.edu<mailto:m...@drexel.edu>> wrote: Excellent message Philippe. Thanks. Always many factors to consider when selecting or changing a primary ssid. If you are considering eduroam as your primary ssid, you may want to consider if you have any campus borders that might currently or in the future hear eduroam from nearby rf neighbors. Certainly more of an issue in urban environments. In Philadelphia, Drexel University and University of Pennsylvania share an urban campus border where we hear each others radios. Both institutions also lease space in a University City Science Center complex (kind of like a colo facility for science and innovation) and we have identified spaces where building occupants can bounce between eduroam networks from each institution. Lets just say joint management of such issues is easier and perhaps a less urgent priority when your primary campus ssid isn't impacted by the overlap. :-) Maybe Philippe has some good stories for us about multi-campus eduroam collaborations! On Jul 22, 2015 (Wed), at 9:29 AM, Philippe Hanset wrote: I always make a point to interview students and faculty about eduroam during my travels or in my town if the opportunity arises These interviewees are from eduroam enabled Universities and Colleges from around the world and are rarely aware of the service. My last interview was with a Canadian student from McGill who spent one month traveling European Cities ...she was bummed to learn on her way back home in line at the airport that she missed on that great opportunity considering that free Wi-FI hotspots are not always easy to find. Now she knows ! IT departments turn eduroam on and the communication to the University community is highly variable depending on the school. I know that Clemson University uses eduroam as their primary secure SSID and did a massive information campaign. As a result we saw a lot of Clemson authentications in our logs showing that the Clemson Community used the service when traveling. What is the right approach to inform the community about eduroam? (here are potential suggestions) -Include a paragraph in the "orientation" material (my son did his school orientation last month and was puzzled that the Wireless section had nothing on eduroam and its roaming benefit) -Let the study abroad office know about eduroam and advertise for the service in that office -Do a mass email (not always popular and will have to be repeated until eduroam becomes part of the knowhow) -Include it in the University media (also needs to be repeated until it becomes part of the knowhow) What else? The most successful approach that we have seen is using eduroam as primary SSID but not every school is willing or ready to do so, and even in that case the communication about the roaming aspect has to be done properly! Once you enable eduroam for your campus, definitely ask your communication department if they can help you spread the word. (there is some customizable material for your school at www.eduroam.org<http://www.eduroam.org/>...click on Media & Logo (left hand side) Best, Philippe Philippe Hanset www.eduroam.us<http://www.eduroam.us/> ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
