Could OpenRoaming be the future innovation of Wi-Fi? Deployed by Cisco, their first commercial trial combines mobile-like roaming through Wi-Fi 6 connectivity.

Cisco has teamed up with the owner of one of the largest business centres in Europe, the Canary Wharf Group, with the vision to transform Wi-Fi. OpenRoaming is conceived as a single, unified roaming fabric. Cisco is creating a federation of trusted members – the OpenRoaming Federation – which includes mobile service providers and device manufacturers, through which Wi-Fi networks can automatically authenticate users’ devices. When users come into range of the Wi-Fi zones, their devices will connect automatically to the trusted Wi-Fi providers, without having to go through a login process.

OpenRoaming, combined with the latest technology of Wi-Fi 6 and 5G phone coverage, has incredible potential to make superfast, reliable Wi-Fi readily available. However, making this coverage available worldwide is a tremendous challenge. To make all of this happen, network providers, operators and manufacturers all need to work together.

Cisco is attempting to bring together two distinct groups to form the OpenRoaming Federation: Wi-Fi access network operators and identity providers (also called IDPs). Wi-Fi access network operators are those who provide Wi-Fi networks, for example, operators like Vodafone, hotels, retail shops and more. Identity providers can be any organisation with an identifiable subscriber base such as Amazon, Facebook, or even airlines or supermarkets with loyalty programmes. Bringing these different parties together is a seemingly positive goal from a service point of view. However, with it comes the threat of monopolisation.

Cisco’s CTO, Matt MacPherson stated “The framework supports both free and paid Wi-Fi services…the combinations and permutations of how OpenRoaming-based Wi-Fi could be used are nearly endless – opening up for a long list of all new business opportunities”.

OpenRoaming is currently being tested, with trial partners such as Samsung, Boingo Wireless, and GlobalReach Technologies, amongst others. OpenRoaming was recently demonstrated at the MWC Barcelona (the world’s largest annual mobile expo event), allowing Galaxy S9 and S10 devices to connect automatically and securely to the venue’s Wi-Fi during the event.

MacPherson states that it is hoped that OpenRoaming will go live early next year. Another long-term perspective is to use OpenRoaming as part of a wider framework allowing seamless roaming between Wi-Fi and cellular networks including 5G. The future potential of OpenRoaming is huge, however, bringing together all providers and networks is not an easy task. In addition, one centrally managed Wi-Fi platform could bring its own problems by dominating the deployment of Wi-Fi on a global scale.