2. Fair Value Measurements

As of September 30, 2015 and December 31, 2014, 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.

The provisions of GAAP establish a fair value hierarchy that contains three levels for inputs used in fair value measurements. Level 1 inputs include quoted market prices for identical assets or liabilities in active markets. Level 2 inputs include quoted market prices for similar assets and liabilities in active markets or quoted market prices for identical assets and liabilities in inactive markets. Level 3 inputs are unobservable. A financial instrument’s level within the fair value hierarchy is based on the lowest level of any input that is significant to the fair value measurement. A financial instrument’s level within the fair value hierarchy is not representative of its expected performance or its overall risk profile and, therefore, Level 3 assets are not necessarily higher risk than Level 2 or Level 1 assets.

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		September 30, 2015						December 31, 2014
				Book Value			Fair Value				Book Value			Fair Value
(Dollars in thousands)
Cash and cash equivalents		1		$	865,425		$	865,425			$	471,901		$	471,901
Long-term debt
	Retail		2			1,453,250			1,460,294				1,453,250			1,414,105
	Institutional		2			532,940			489,373				532,722			513,647
	Other		2			220,922			221,538				4,749			4,675

The fair value of Cash and cash equivalents approximates the book value due to the short-term nature of these financial instruments. Long-term debt excludes capital lease obligations and the current portion of Long-term debt. 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 Notes and 5.875% Senior Notes, and U.S. Cellular’s 6.95% Senior Notes and 7.25% Senior Notes. TDS’ “Institutional” debt consists of U.S. Cellular’s 6.7% Senior Notes which are traded over the counter. TDS’ “Other” debt consists of a senior term loan credit facility and other borrowings with financial institutions. TDS estimated the fair value of its Institutional and Other debt through a discounted cash flow analysis using the interest rates or estimated yield to maturity for each borrowing, which ranged from 0.00% to 7.73% and 0.00% to 7.25% at September 30, 2015 and December 31, 2014, respectively.