News

Thanks to an agreement signed between the National Council of Rectors of Costa Rica (CONARE) and the Superintendence of Telecommunications (SUTEL), the eduroam service joined the "Connected Public Spaces" program. This program aims at providing the population with free access to the Internet in 515 Zones of Wireless Internet (ZWI). To date, there are 301 ZWI of the 515 that the project includes.

(Source: CONARE) The Connected Public Spaces program, administered and executed by SUTEL and financed with resources from the National Telecommunications Fund (FONATEL), will extend more than 1500 kilometers of optical fiber to offer free wireless internet, in the following spaces:

• 419 public spaces (parks and squares);
• 28 train stations of the Costa Rican Railroad Institute (Incofer);
• 61 public libraries National Library System (SINABI); and
• 7 Civic Centers for Peace.

Thanks to the agreement, students, researchers, academics and administrative staff of the state public universities will be able to access the eduroam service in all Wireless Internet Zones distributed in 412 districts of the national territory, in addition to the points that already have access.

Eduroam (education roaming) is a worldwide service that offers a secure and automatic model of connectivity and mobility between the different wireless research and education networks. eduroam is a global initiative in which educational institutions from around the world participate.

In Costa Rica, eduroam is provided and managed by RedCONARE and coordinated by the ICT Directors Committee of CONARE. As a result of the joint efforts of both instances and the collaboration of FONATEL, the deployment of eduroam in the Wireless Internet Zones contemplated in the Connected Public Spaces program is achieved, making Costa Rica the first country in Latin America to achieve such a wide level of coverage for the service.