The JANET Roaming Service (JRS, also known as eduroam) is a free wireless Internet service that allows users from any participating institution (mostly in UK higher education) to log on at any other participating institution using their home credentials such as username and password.
Eduroam separates the network connection from authentication. You gain access through the wireless network where you are, but must be authorised by your home institution. The local network equipment passes your username and password through to your home institution which can choose to accept or reject them.
If you have an active computer account at Birkbeck we recommend that you connect to our network using the Campus Manager as described here. This gives direct access to local computing resources such as printers and the shared directories on the server.
But you may also log on through JRS, which allows access to the Internet but not to all of the College's local network (it is therefore the same sort of network connection that you might have through broadband at home or at a net cafe). We suggest that you try this if you want to check that you can use eduroam here before trying it at another location.
The eduroam service forwards any authentication request to your home institution (such as another UK university) so you should be able to get onto the Internet from Birkbeck if that home institution is a member of the JRS scheme.
The only requirement when connecting to eduroam locally is a wireless network client which supports the authentication protocol required by your home institution (such as EAP/TTLS or EAP/PEAP). Most recent Windows and Macintosh and Linux systems should work, as will some other devices. The domain name of your home institution must also be specified when authenticating.
Before you try to log on to the Internet at Birkbeck you should find out if your home institution supports authentication from external institutions participating in the JRS eduroam service.
You will need to connect to their wireless network but then use your Birkbeck ITS username and password to get access to the Internet.
It might be helpful to set up your laptop or other mobile device to use the eduroam service here first, so that you are sure you can connect and know which username and password to use. If you can connect to one JRS organisation you should be able to connect to all (or nearly all) of them, but there may be a few minor differences.