Bergen County, New Jersey officials say they’re making significant progress on their plan to dramatically expand Bergen County Fiber – the county’s new municipal fiber Institutional Network (I-Net) – with recently completed deployments in communities like Little Ferry and Lodi.
The I-Net doesn’t provide broadband access directly to local residents, instead focusing exclusively on providing alternative fiber connectivity for communities, municipalities, and key anchor institutions. As a result county leaders say participating local municipalities are already seeing dramatic discounts - with some halving their monthly costs already - over regional location enterprise-scale fiber providers.
Plans for the Bergen County Fiber were announced in February of 2024 after a two-year collaborative effort between the county’s IT department and Millenium Communications Group, which began the project by installing fiber to most key anchor institutions including municipal buildings, schools, and regional libraries.
From there, the county has steadily expanded access to fiber that’s significantly cheaper than anything provided by regional telecom monopolies Verizon (FiOS) and Optimum, recently culminating with launches in municipalities starting with Little Ferry (population 11,000), and expanding to Hillsdale (population 10,266 ), and Lodi (population 26,000).
“With Bergen Fiber, we are ensuring that every town — big or small — has the ability to access secure, affordable and reliable Internet service at a fraction of the cost of commercial carriers," Bergen County Executive Jim Tedesco said of the county-owned network launch.
Like many municipal broadband ventures, the first to benefit have generally been local libraries, schools, and community centers. As well as dramatic reliability and capacity boosts to municipal building connectivity, which tend to bolster existing countywide services ranging from emergency communications to local infrastructure maintenance and monitoring.
“The Bergen Fiber Network is about empowering local governments with the tools they need to serve residents better,” Tedesco said after the project recently expanded to Hillsdale. “By building and owning this network, we’re putting our municipalities in control of their connectivity—delivering faster service, greater reliability, and real savings for taxpayers. Hillsdale’s connection is another big step forward toward our goal of linking every community in Bergen County.”
All told, more than 25 municipalities, agencies, and anchor institutions are now connected to the network including Fair Lawn, Fairview, Fort Lee Library, Franklin Lakes, Hillsdale, Hillsdale Library, Lodi, Lodi Library, Mahwah Library, Maywood, Midland Park, Montvale, Oakland, Palisades Park, Paramus Library, Park Ridge Library, River Vale, Rutherford, Saddle River, Teaneck, Tenafly, Tenafly Police Department, Upper Saddle River, Upper Saddle River Library, and Woodcliff Lake.
The Bergen Fiber initiative was announced by Tedesco in February 2024 after a two-year collaboration between the county's information technology department and the Millenium Communications Group. Millennium installed the broadband lines in all county buildings, and continues to partner with the county to run fiber lines into municipal borough halls and libraries.
Tedesco has noted that some of the participating towns, like Hillsdale, are already cutting their broadband costs by nearly 50% compared to commercial carriers — which he called “real, tangible savings for taxpayers.”
“Hillsdale is proud to be part of this forward-thinking partnership,” Hillsdale Mayor Michael Sheinfield said of the network expansion. “Joining the Bergen Fiber Network gives our Borough access to enterprise-grade connectivity that keeps local government efficient and responsive, while saving our taxpayers money. We thank the Tedesco administration and Board of Commissioners for bringing this innovation to Hillsdale.”
The funding of the Bergen County I-Net was made possible by one-time federal stimulus grants and ongoing municipal fees to keep it running. $10 million in funding came from part of Bergen County’s $181 million allocation from the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF), made possible by the 2021 federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).
By classifying the network as a public safety and essential government service, the county was able to use federal dollars to pay for the middle mile fiber ring without taking on municipal bond debt or raising county taxes.
Ideally, such I-Nets and the improved connectivity for anchor institutions can broadly benefit the general public, enabling remote learning programs, resulting in faster public Wi-Fi at community centers and libraries, or making the public safer and improving health care outcomes through improved and more efficient emergency response. They also often serve as a stepping stone to wider residential service, though not always.
By eliminating commercial carrier dependence Bergen – and other municipalities that embrace the model – can eliminate the fluctuating (and often predatory) rates of large commercial providers, providing stability to essential communications costs. The collaborative nature of such county efforts can also result in progress municipalities may struggle to see alone. With a million people living in the county, there’s a lot of potential to be realized.
“The Bergen Fiber Initiative is proof that shared services work,” said Bergen County Commissioner Tom Sullivan. “When we pool our resources and invest together, every community benefits—through better service, improved performance, and lower costs.”
Bergen county still has plenty of work to do to connect the 70 municipalities within its borders, and it remains an open question about whether the county may someday embrace residential last-mile connectivity.
Header image by Wikimedia user Dougtone via Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0
Inline image of Little Ferry launch from Bergen County Executive Jim Tedesco via Facebook
