Spotlight: eduroam, the free university Wi-Fi that now works at Mall of Africa

Wits students and staff can now get online at Mall of Africa in Midrand with their university login. The university announced it this week: "Witsies, you can now connect to eduroam at Mall of Africa!" The mall is some distance from any Wits campus, which is the point. eduroam is a free roaming Wi-Fi service for universities and research bodies, and in South Africa it has been moving off campus for a while.

The same login already works at the main ACSA airports, in 57 City of Cape Town public libraries and in City of Johannesburg libraries. For students paying for their own mobile data, that adds up to a set of places where a university account means free, encrypted Wi-Fi with no sign-up form.

How it works

eduroam is run in South Africa by TENET, the non-profit network that connects the country's universities and research institutions. You connect to the network named "eduroam" and sign in with the username and password your institution gave you. Your device sets up an encrypted tunnel to your own institution's login server, so the venue never sees your password.

That makes it different from most mall Wi-Fi. There is no web page asking for an email address or a cellphone number, and eduroam's own guidance is blunt: "Do not enter your home organisation's credentials into a service provider's web page." If a page asks for your university password, it is not eduroam. Roaming is free to users. The venue's firewall rules still apply, so a site that loads on campus Wi-Fi can still be blocked at the mall.

The practical step, before you need it, is to set the network up on the phone and the laptop using the institution's own instructions. A first-time login in a food court, on a captive page that is not eduroam, is the mistake the guidance is written to stop.

Who is in

TENET's participant list names 51 organisations. Most are universities and research councils: UCT, Wits, UJ, Pretoria, Stellenbosch, Unisa, UKZN, Rhodes, the universities of technology and others. The list also includes Airports Company South Africa, the cities of Cape Town and Johannesburg, the Mpumalanga provincial government, Liquid Intelligent Technologies, a Cape Town hotel, and now "Mall of Africa (Attacq)", the JSE-listed property group that owns the mall and the surrounding Waterfall City precinct.

The airport deal shows how these extensions happen. Wits, TENET and ACSA brought eduroam to nine ACSA airports in May 2023, including OR Tambo, Cape Town International, King Shaka and Bram Fischer. In Cape Town, the city and TENET switched it on in 57 public libraries in June 2019. In Johannesburg, a 2025 agreement between Wits, TENET and the city extended it to public libraries. Mall of Africa is the retail version of that pattern: a venue that hosts the network, and a university that remains the place the password is checked.

The economics help. TENET charges venues that only host eduroam no participation fee or recurring cost. They pay for their own Wi-Fi and authentication servers. Universities, as the identity providers, pay TENET fees tiered by student and staff numbers. Attacq, on that split, is a host. Wits is an identity provider. The announcement this week came from Wits, aimed at Witsies.

What is still unclear

eduroam is designed so that anyone from a participating institution can connect at any eduroam site. That design suggests students from UCT, UJ or UKZN should be able to use the Mall of Africa network too. Neither Wits nor Attacq has said so. The post that announced the service was written to Wits students and staff. A design feature of the global network is not the same as a sentence from the mall.

Neither has said where in the mall coverage runs, what speeds to expect, or whether the service will reach other Attacq properties in Waterfall City. "Mall of Africa (Attacq)" on TENET's list names the participant. It does not draw the floor plan.

The list of places is already long enough to matter on a weekend. Nine ACSA airports since May 2023, 57 Cape Town libraries since June 2019, Johannesburg libraries under the 2025 city agreement, and now a mall in Midrand. Each of those is a host venue. The password still goes home to the university. That split is why a Wits login works at OR Tambo without Wits running the airport's Wi-Fi, and why Attacq can appear on TENET's list without becoming a university.

What a student does at the mall is the same sequence eduroam already describes. Join the network named "eduroam". Sign in with the institution's username and password. Let the phone open the encrypted tunnel back to that institution. Ignore any web page that asks for the same password. If the venue's firewall blocks a site, that block is the mall's, not a failure of the university login. None of that tells you the speed in a particular court, or whether the signal reaches the parking decks. TENET's participant line, "Mall of Africa (Attacq)", does not either.

For now the practical advice is the one eduroam already publishes. Set the network up before you need it, using your institution's instructions. If a web page asks for the university password, do not type it. Check the "Closest eduroam" locator on eduroam.ac.za for the nearest site, and treat Mall of Africa as a Wits announcement until Attacq or TENET says who else can sign in.

Sources: TENET's eduroam.ac.za participant list and venue guidance; Wits News, 2023, on the nine ACSA airports; Hypertext's report of Wits's announcement this week. The X post itself was not fetched.