Wireless Access on Campus

The campus wireless network provides the College of Charleston community with wireless service in all academic areas including the main campus Downtown, North Charleston, Patriots Point, Grice Marine Lab, Dixie Plantation, and the Central Warehouse. The College of Charleston does NOT operate the wireless network in the residence halls. For campus housing wireless information, please see the click “ResNet” link. There are two wireless networks operated by the College of Charleston IT: • eduroam • cofc-guest

Network: eduroam

Registered students, faculty, and staff must use eduroam to access the College of Charleston wireless network. Using this network gives the campus community members access to the Internet, internal network resources (including the library databases), and wireless service at more than 4,000 other eduroam institutions globally. Eduroam is encrypted using WPA2 AES Enterprise encryption standards. While this provides a level of security to your data, we cannot guarantee that your data is safe from breaches. Please take precautions to ensure that your data is protected. When accepting wireless security certificates, ensure that the certificate is issued by “Symantec” for “wireless.cofc.edu”; any other certificate may be a forgery and could compromise your security.

To connect to eduroam, please use these helpful guides for your devices: Wireless device setup guides

To have your device automatically configured, run our easy-to-use tool at: Eduroam CAT Tool Temporary guest accounts are created on a per-request basis and are granted encrypted access to the Internet without bandwidth limitations or timeouts. These accounts are common for special campus events. These accounts are not granted privileged access to internal network resources. Contact the help desk to create a “temporary wireless account” ticket.

Network: cofc-guest


Guests of the College of Charleston can make use of the complimentary Internet access provided through the “cofc-guest” wireless network. It has a limited bandwidth of 5Mbps and will disconnect the user after 12 hours. You are welcome to rejoin the network after this timeout. Campus community members should NOT use this network. This network does NOT grant access to internal network resources and is NOT encrypted. Be aware that third parties can wirelessly intercept any data transmitted on this network. It is not recommended that sensitive data be transmitted, but if you do, ensure that any sensitive data is encrypted before transmission. For example, ensure that website addresses begin with “https://” instead of “http://”. Remember that the “s” is for “secure”. The College of Charleston cannot guarantee the security of your data on this network and does monitor all data connections.

Wireless Network Policy

The purpose of this policy is to provide a highly reliable and reasonably performing wireless network service while ensuring network security and integrity and minimizing the interference between the campus wireless network and other wireless technologies deployed throughout the campus.