The public sector gets mobile with govroam

• govroam WiFi rolled out across Kent to connect council, hospital and blue-light organisations
• Expansion into London enables seamless ‘connect and go’ roaming across counties
• London-wide rollout planned for February

KHIPU Networks today announced that govroam, the WiFi service that is mobilising the public sector, has been rolled out to over 200 sites across Kent, including hospital and blue-light organisations.

Using KHIPU’s ‘govroam-in-a-box’ platform, govroam users are able to visit any other institution within the govroam community, with automatic connectivity to the internet as well as the ability to access their home network securely.

“We needed an affordable offering that could scale to support any number of sites and not be limited to specific WiFi technologies.” said Jeff Wallbank. head of the Kent Public Service Network Partnership (KPSN).

“This was an all-in-one solution that could be installed, supported, and managed by a single point of contact; enabling a simple rollout across all public sector sites within Kent and a blueprint platform capable of expansion including eduroam access. Our end goal was to facilitate a complete shared service environment across the UK.”

The introduction of this level of connectivity has enabled the public sector to work smarter, be more integrated, and, due to the success of the Kent project, London will deploy a similar service to its users, enabling seamless access across the capital’s public-sector sites.

“The project has been a great success, enabling true mobility across the county with a number of benefits, such as sharing of multi-department spaces, reducing costs, ‘zero-touch’ seamless WiFi access, and the ability to now rationalise public estate,” said Matt Ashman, co-founder of KHIPU Networks.

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust were the first two London sites to advertise the govroam WiFi service.

“I’m delighted that our hospitals are the first in London to be part of the govroam network”, said Joanna Smith, chief information officer at Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trust.

“Mobility and easy access to systems are a critical part of our ability to continue to offer great services to our patients.

Many of our clinicians run clinics at other hospitals, so making it possible for them to connect back to our systems is key to patient care and productivity.”

Working in partnership with Jisc, which has deployed the national-level infrastructure required to launch the govroam service, has enabled KHIPU to provide a complete solution for staff mobilisation across the public sector.

Mark O’Leary, Jisc’s head of network access, said: “JJisc is pleased to be able to share its experience of roaming technologies with the wider public sector in establishing the govroam service, and welcomes the support of providers like KHIPU Networks who have successfully delivered bespoke eduroam solutions to some of our customers in the past and are now enthusiastically engaging with govroam technologies for a broader audience.

“Many of our earliest adopters have joined govroam quickly and easily through KHIPU’s ‘govroam-in-a-box’ offering, and we will continue to support commercial providers in building an ecosystem capable of delivering the infrastructure that will help govroam grow.”