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Dialogic, commissioned by the municipality of Amsterdam, explored the possibilities for rolling out free Wi-Fi at busy locations in the city and investigated the feasibility and benefits of implementing public roaming.
In the Digital City Agenda, the municipality of Amsterdam describes its ambitions in the field of digitalisation. Amsterdam aims to provide secure, well-functioning digital infrastructure for everyone to harness the potential of digitalisation now and in the future. One of the actions in 2019 was to explore opportunities to provide free Wi-Fi in more locations in the city, especially in busy public spaces and buildings.
With public roaming, a user requests an access code once, which can then be used to log in to all Wi-Fi hotspots connected to the public roaming platform. The system is similar to systems like eduroam (which allows students to log in to hotspots at universities worldwide) and govroam (for Dutch government employees). Public roaming enhances the user-friendliness of secure Wi-Fi hotspots (as there is no need to enter a password each time). Providers also no longer need to offer 'open' Wi-Fi hotspots with public roaming, which increases the level of security. A public roaming service can be applied to Wi-Fi infrastructure from various providers, including Dutch telecom operators and individual entrepreneurs. Public roaming is offered in the Netherlands by Publicroam.
Following the research on the importance of secure Wi-Fi, Publicroam and Dialogic developed an 'in the box' solution to easily connect locations to the Publicroam network.
On 15th November 2019, Amsterdam launched secure Wi-Fi in public spaces. At various locations, people can now log in to the Publicroam network and safely use the available Wi-Fi. See also the news article from the municipality of Amsterdam.
