Property, Plant and Equipment

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2013

Property, Plant and Equipment [Abstract]

3. Property, Plant and Equipment

Property, plant and equipment consisted of the following (in thousands):

	September 30,		December 31,
	2013		2012
Plant in service	$	619,302	$	586,216
Plant under construction		21,535		25,469
		640,837		611,685
Less accumulated amortization and depreciation		245,381		246,211
Net property, plant and equipment	$	395,456	$	365,474

During the first quarter of 2012, the Company entered into agreements with Sprint and Alcatel-Lucent to begin updating the Company’s Wireless network. The update uses base station equipment acquired from Alcatel-Lucent in conjunction with Sprint’s wireless network upgrade plan known as Network Vision. Beginning in the second quarter of 2012, the Company began replacing cell site equipment at a number of its cell sites. As of September 30, 2013, 500 of its 525 sites had been upgraded. The remaining 25 sites will be upgraded when outstanding leasing and zoning issues are resolved. The Company accelerated depreciation on these assets so that net book value at time of trade-in would equal the value to be realized upon trade-in. During 2012, the Company recognized approximately $8.4 million of accelerated depreciation expense for Network Vision related activities, including $7.1 million in the first nine months of 2012; the first nine months of 2013 included $3.1 million of accelerated depreciation expense.

- Definition

The entire disclosure for long-lived, physical assets that are used in the normal conduct of business to produce goods and services and not intended for resale. Examples include land, buildings, machinery and equipment, and other types of furniture and equipment including, but not limited to, office equipment, furniture and fixtures, and computer equipment and software. This disclosure may include property plant and equipment accounting policies and methodology, a schedule of property, plant and equipment gross, additions, deletions, transfers and other changes, depreciation, depletion and amortization expense, net, accumulated depreciation, depletion and amortization expense and useful lives, income statement disclosures, assets held for sale and public utility disclosures.

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