Fair Value Measurements

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2014

Disclosure Text Block

Fair Value Measurements

2. Fair Value Measurements

As of March 31, 2014 and December 31, 2013, TDS did not have any financial or nonfinancial assets or liabilities that were required to be recorded at fair value in its Consolidated Balance Sheet in accordance with GAAP. However, TDS has applied the provisions of fair value accounting for purposes of computing the fair value of financial instruments for disclosure purposes as displayed below.

		Level within the Fair Value Hierarchy	March 31, 2014				December 31, 2013
			Book Value		Fair Value		Book Value		Fair Value
(Dollars in thousands)
Cash and cash equivalents		1	$	872,910	$	872,910	$	830,014	$	830,014
Short-term investments
	U.S. Treasury Notes	1		40,056		40,056		50,104		50,104
Long-term debt
	Retail	1		1,178,250		1,170,617		1,178,250		1,048,010
	Institutional and other	2		537,408		536,843		537,454		512,635

Short-term investments are designated as held-to-maturity investments and recorded at amortized cost in the Consolidated Balance Sheet. Long-term debt excludes capital lease obligations and the current portion of Long-term debt.

The fair values of Cash and cash equivalents and Short-term investments approximate their book values due to the short-term nature of these financial instruments. The fair value of “Retail” Long-term debt was estimated using market prices for TDS' 7.0% Senior Notes, 6.875% Senior Notes, 6.625% Senior Notesand 5.875% Senior Notes, and U.S. Cellular's6.95% Senior Notes. TDS' institutional debt includes U.S. Cellular's 6.7% Senior Notes which are traded over the counter. TDS estimated the fair value of its institutional and otherdebt through a discounted cash flow analysis using the interest rates or estimated yield to maturity for each borrowing, which ranged from 0.00% to 6.91% at March 31, 2014.