Spotlight: Oakland’s Implements a Private Fiber Broadband network provides great benefit to Oakland TV

By Mark Albala, Vice Chairman of Oakland TVnt Producer

There has been a phenomenon throughout the United States with many municipalities reducing communication costs through the advocation of a municipal broadband network. In 2024, Oakland, New Jersey joined the ranks of over 400 communities nationwide which have taken the initiative in managing the tax burden of residents for the necessary communications infrastructure by completing the implementation of the borough’s private fiber broadband network. 

While most communities engaging in this initiative are larger than Oakland, Oakland (like its brethren communities) has made the decision that enough is enough. Instead of pleading with internet service providers (ISPs) to better manage taxpayer expenses for the connectivity required, they have decided to invest in themselves. Several companies have emerged capable of assisting municipalities on this journey. Oakland selected Millennium Group which has helped Oakland turn an aspirational journey into reality.

This journey started almost six years ago, when Eric Kulmala, then an employee of Verizon and a council member of the community had the idea when he witnessed the complexities of installing some conduit needed for lighting the community’s recreation fields. When this journey started six years ago as a way to reduce the costs to the community while enabling the increasing complexity of broadband communications—creating a private fiber broadband network was far from commonplace. The vision and dogged determination of the now mayor of Oakland, Eric Kulmala saw the availability of such a network brought on-line in 2024. Eric associates the vision and expertise afforded to the borough with the engaging Millenium Broadband Solutions to convert the vision into reality. As reported by Broadbandnow, only 47 communities nationwide have had the tenacity and discipline to successfully implement such a program and 16 states currently disallow such initiatives.

Jim Barry, Chairman of Oakland TV stated, “I’m glad the mayor and council had the vision to see this network through. It gives us tremendous capabilities to service the citizens of Oakland. There is great potential here for broadcasting Oakland’s sporting venues and other events in real time for everyone wherever they are located”.

While this initiative was tackled (similar to other municipalities) to control costs associated with the necessary increasing complexity and capabilities of internet connectivity, the accessibility of such a broadband network opens many capabilities with which the borough can enlighten it’s residents through Oakland TV.  Oakland TV is operated by the borough and is managed through the Oakland Communications Commission as an all-volunteer TV broadcast facility.

Mark Albala, the Vice Chairman of Oakland TV, has begun researching and costing for possible ways to devise a remote broadcasting studio. This studio might consist of a control board and cameras powered by the ethernet connectivity that is connected directly to the fiber network. Without the existence of this private fiber network, the cost of implementing broadcasting capabilities to any of the municipal facilities in which events are held was quite high and needed dedicated facilities for each of these locations.

The advent of this broadband network facilitates the ability to have a relocatable TV broadcasting studio that can be set up at any of these sites in a couple of hours at a fraction of the cost. It requires only one or two relocatable studios instead of one dedicated to each location. To date, the locations that are candidates for such broadcasting capabilities are the senior center, the library, the schools within town, the recreation fields and other venues with viability.  Albala stated, “As long as the network is available at the site, we can broadcast with no additional expenditure once the relocatable broadcasting studio is acquired.” Mark had the idea of extending our recording and broadcasting solutions through ideas communicated by sites like ChurchFront, which provides insight into low cost setups for religious broadcasting needs. Mark has begun discussions with a support partner of Oakland TV, OutreachFX, who validated the viability of this approach and validated the ability to greatly reduce the costs associated with enabling remote broadcasting as a result of the broadband fiber network.

As of this writing, Jim Barry, the Chairman of Oakland TV, has already begun discussions with the opportunity for sports broadcasting within the town. Jim said, “We have received several quotes to extend our broadcasting capabilities starting with the senior center. The expense of live broadcasting within town was proving to be significant at each location that we wanted to include as a potential broadcasting venue. This new networking capability changes everything.”

“While there is still much work to be done and aspects to investigate, Mayor Kulmala has always been forward thinking, practical and innovative in his efforts to move Oakland into the 21st century while at the same time, looking for ways to save the Borough money and increase services for residents,” said Oakland Communications Chairman Ryan Schwertfeger. “Use by Oakland TV was not the initial intended use or goal for this project, but we are grateful that we will be able to benefit from this new fiber loop in our efforts to expand our types of programming, increase transparency in government, and do so while being fiscally responsible. I personally want to thank the Mayor for thinking of this project, persisting to see this project through and thinking of the OCC and the Television Committee while unleashing the fiber loop’s full potential.” The newly implemented fiber network was made possible by a significant amount of focus and the expertise of Millenium Broadband Solutions. It provides 10 Gigabit connectivity at a greatly reduced cost to the community at all locations included in the municipal network.