The One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) creates some significant new benefits for building broadband networks. Following are the primary ones. Tax experts may glean some other ones out of the lengthy bill.

Bonus Depreciation is a tax incentive that allows businesses to immediately deduct a significant portion of the cost of building qualified assets, instead of spreading it out over as asset’s useful life. Before OBBB, bonus depreciation was being phased out. It was at 40% of the cost of a qualifying asset in 2025, 20% in 2026, and zero in 2027. OBB resets this back to 100%. There is also no dollar limit on newly used bonus depreciation.

Bonus depreciation can be applied to any asset with a useful life of twenty years or less. That means it can’t be applied to fiber, conduits, towers, and buildings, but can also be applied to all other components of building a new fiber or wireless network. Bonus depreciation applies to more than network assets and can be applied against vehicles, furniture, computers, and software. There are some limits on the amount that can be used for vehicles.

This is a big deal for somebody building a fiber network because it can provide tax relief at the time you are funding and building a network. Big ISPs see the value of this, and AT&T said after passage of the bill that the bonus depreciation provides an incentive for the company to accelerate construction for the 30 million planned new fiber passings.

There is one downside to note for bonus depreciation – if you sell an asset that took advantage of bonus depreciation before the end of its normal expected life, the seller forfeits the bonus depreciation and must recognize it as taxable income at the time of the sale. Note that businesses can still use normal 179 accelerated depreciation for fiber and other long-life assets.

Opportunity Zones: OBBB makes the opportunity zone program permanent. The program was set to sunset at the end of 2026. The opportunity zone program is aimed at promoting infrastructure investments in economically distressed areas. Qualified investments made in opportunity zones can generate deferred taxes and reduced capital gains. It’s been fairly easy to qualify fiber networks as eligible for opportunity zone benefits, particularly if the fiber projects were built in conjunction with other economic development initiatives.

There are maps online that show the areas where current opportunity zone investment apply. States will likely modify the maps starting in 2026 since the definition of eligible low-income communities has changed. The new rules are also friendlier for making investments in rural opportunity zones.

Interest Deductibility. OBBB permanently changes the adjusted taxable income formula used to calculate the amount of interest a business can deduct. The new formula is computed using Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization (EBITDA) and not the more limited EBIT.

R&D Deduction. This probably doesn’t benefit many ISPs, but OBBB restores the permanent ability to deduct research and development costs, including a one-time opportunity to deduct these expenses retroactively to January 1, 2022.