WBA OpenRoaming promises new era of digital inclusion across Australia

The global industry body dedicated to improving Wi-Fi standards and services, the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA), has announced the launch of “a breakthrough deployment” allowing some of Australia’s most remote and marginalised communities to gain access to online healthcare, education and secure communications through the arrival of a public Wi-Fi network.

The project, delivered by Easyweb Digital via WBA members Encapto and Cambium Networks, is focused on delivering “place-based” telecommunications infrastructure to improve digital connectivity across remote communities in Central Australia. Residents of these small communities are highly mobile, regularly travelling 300-500km round trips to neighbouring communities or Alice Springs to visit family, participate in sports or cultural events, or access essential services.

WBA believes that with its OpenRoaming platform – and through Easyweb’s First Nations Community Wi-Fi Project for inclusion and economic development using solar-powered community Wi-Fi hubs – it can provide free connectivity to hundreds of Indigenous Australians in five remote Central Australian communities and 11 “town camps” in Alice Springs, allowing them to gain access to “life-changing” avenues of connectivity.

The deployment will provide the largely Indigenous residents with switching between a growing number of Easyweb networks that support OpenRoaming in towns and community centres across Central Australia. A combination of OpenRoaming, Wi-Fi, and Geostationary and Low Earth Orbit satellite backhaul will provide unprecedented redundancy and reliability in a region long characterised by poor communications and devastating social disadvantage. 

Available at more than a million hotspots worldwide, OpenRoaming is said to have become the global standard that Wi-Fi network owners, service providers and others are adding to free users from the need to constantly re-register or re-enter log-in credentials – all while maintaining enterprise-grade security. OpenRoaming supporters include Agreefy, AT&T, Boingo, Charter, Cisco, CityRoam, Cloud4Wi, Comcast, Deutsche Telekom, GlobalReach, Google, Intel, Marriott, MiniMe Labs, SingleDigits and WeFi.

To drive digital inclusion in Australia, OpenRoaming will allow users with varying technical skills to easily move between different Wi-Fi and cellular networks through a profile installed on their mobile device, which automatically authenticates them while ensuring security and data privacy. By allowing users to automatically connect to the nearest Community Wi-Fi Hub without repeatedly logging in, WBA assured OpenRoaming will provide uninterrupted connectivity.

Voice over Wi-Fi is regarded as a particularly important feature in this region, where communities such as Haasts Bluff/Ikuntji and Nturiya have no cellular service.

Each of the autonomous assets deployed in the project will be powered by a standalone solar headend, “weather-proofed” against the extreme desert environment. The OpenRoaming network will offer “cellular-like” access to broadband speeds of up to 300 Mbps, while the system’s redundancy will prioritise low-latency voice over Wi-Fi calls and essential health, education and emergency services. All of these depend on stable and accessible internet connections.

“Internet connectivity empowers remote communities and allows them to access basic services and thrive,” said Tiago Rodrigues, CEO of the Wireless Broadband Alliance.

“For these communities, Wi-Fi is as critical as water. It is a must for social and economic development that OpenRoaming projects across the globe are driving up digital inclusion. This project is already showing how having a global connectivity infrastructure that reaches all communities, has the potential to transform civilisation.”

In the future, Easyweb Digital hopes to support the development of educational resources and training programmes to promote new digital skills in these communities, as well as developing a helpline and a smartphone app to support its Wi-Fi customers.

“In the past, people in these towns could walk for a whole day to check their bank balance or access eGovernment services,” said Easyweb Digital CEO Darryl Clarke.

“Providing connectivity to these regions has been notoriously challenging in the past, due to their remoteness, high levels of social disadvantage, and low levels of digital literacy.

“For First Nations communities, smartphones are the primary way of accessing online services, but in the past, connectivity has been slow, unreliable and expensive. Providing free connectivity to residents in these communities is a critical first step in enabling them to access the services they need.”