As thousands of educators converge in Philadelphia June 27 for the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC), many will get their first look at a fledgling concept that would allow students and faculty nationwide to access their institution's wireless local area network, or WLAN, from any wireless access point at any other campus in the country.

Dubbed the Education First Network, the joint effort--sponsored by wireless technology providers Airpath Wireless Inc. and Bluesocket Inc., in association with the National Joint Powers Alliance (NJPA) and the Broadband Alliance--seeks to build the first ever coast-to-coast, inter-campus Wi-Fi network specifically for the education community.

Cell phone users might think of it as roaming--for your laptop.

The initiative "is an extension of how the telecommunication industry has worked for years," said Jo Boettcher, chief operating officer for the Broadband Alliance, "providing the capability [to roam] across multiple networks, with ... service to customers as they utilize other organizations' infrastructures."

The goal would be to give students and faculty at participating institutions the ability to log on to their own schools' native network while visiting another campus or conducting research at another institution's library, for example. The network would also look to connect member institutions, creating a central hub where authorized users could access information, share resources, and engage in cross-campus virtual learning.

Although wireless networks are rapidly being deployed within education, Boettcher said, the problem is that "all of this effort and cost is not being leveraged to its fullest potential."

The organizers of Education First are hoping to change that.

"As schools and universities join the Education First Network, every member campus will become accessible to students, staff, and faculty via the network," said Todd Myers, founder and chief executive officer of Airpath, whose Massachusetts-based company, along with fellow New England wireless security provider Bluesocket, has been tapped to manage access and security for the network.

Based on a concept called InterRoam, which allows IT technicians to control a myriad of Wi-Fi access points and security protocols remotely from one central location, Airpath has created SchoolRoam, a single interconnect that allows school IT staff "to dedicate scarce resources just once, effectively growing the footprint available to their students and faculty without having to dedicate additional resources and without changing existing deployed architecture," explained Boettcher.

"As long as a K-12 school or higher-education institution is connected through the SchoolRoam portal, all students, faculty, and employees of that institution will have the same access when they are at another institution," Boettcher said. That means all security policies, passwords, and authentication processes--including any installed web filters, firewalls, and pop-up blockers--also will travel with them.