REVENUE RECOGNITION

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2019

Revenue Recognition

Revenue Recognition

3. REVENUE RECOGNITION

Impact of adoption

The Company adopted ASC 606 on January 1, 2018 using the modified retrospective method. The Company elected the practical expedient to apply the new guidance only to contracts that were not substantially complete at the adoption date. The cumulative effect of adopting ASC 606 resulted in a contract asset of $1.6 million, of which $1.2 million was recorded in prepayments and other current assets, and $0.4 million was recorded in other assets, a contract liability of $0.2 million recorded in advance payments and deposits, contract acquisition costs of $1.5 million of which $0.9 million was recorded in prepayments and other current assets and $0.6 million was recorded in other assets, and a deferred tax liability of $0.3 million with the offset of $1.5 million recorded to retained earnings and $1.1 million recorded to minority interest.

Contract Assets and Liabilities

The Company recognizes contract assets and liabilities on its balance sheet. Contract assets represent unbilled amounts typically resulting from retail wireless contracts with both a multiyear service period and a promotional discount. In these contracts the revenue recognized exceeds the amount billed to the customer. The current portion of the contract asset is recorded in prepayments and other current assets and the noncurrent portion is included in other assets on the Company’s balance sheet.

Contract liabilities consist of advance payments and billings in excess of revenue recognized. Retail revenue for postpaid customers is generally billed one month in advance and recognized over the period that the corresponding service is rendered to customers. To the extent the service is not provided by the reporting date the amount is recognized as a contract liability. Prepaid service, including mobile voice and data services, sold to customers is recorded as deferred revenue prior to the commencement of services. Contract liabilities are recorded in advanced payments and deposits on its balance sheets.

In July 2019, the Company entered into a Network Build and Maintenance Agreement (the “FirstNet Agreement”) with AT&T Mobility, LLC (“AT&T”) to build a portion of AT&T’s network for the First Responder Network Authority (“FirstNet”) as well as a commercial wireless network in or near its current operating area in the Southwestern United States (the “FirstNet Transaction”).  The transaction includes construction and service performance obligations. The Company allocated the transaction price of the FirstNet Agreement to each performance obligation based on the relative standalone selling price of each performance obligation in the contract. The standalone selling price is the estimated price the Company would charge for the good or service in a separate transaction with similar customers in similar circumstances.

Contract assets and liabilities consisted of the following (in thousands):

	September 30, 2019		December 31, 2018			$ Change	% Change
Contract asset – current	$	2,148	$	1,900	$	248	13	%
Contract asset – noncurrent		703		802		(99)	(12)	%
Contract liabilities		(17,729)		(13,787)		(3,942)	(29)	%
Net contract liability	$	(14,878)	$	(11,085)	$	(3,793)	(34)	%

The contract asset – current is included in prepayments and other current assets, the contract asset – noncurrent is included in other assets, and the contract liabilities are included in advance payments and deposits on the Company’s balance sheet. The increase in the Company’s net contract liability was due to the timing of customer prepayments, contract billings, and the FirstNet Transaction. During the nine months ended September 30, 2019, the Company recognized revenue of $11.2 million related to its December 31, 2018 contract liability. During the three and nine months ended September 30, 2019 the Company amortized $0.4 million and $1.5 million, respectively, of the December 31, 2018 contract asset into revenue. The Company recognized $11.2 million of revenue in the three and nine months ended September 30, 2019, related to performance obligations that were satisfied or partially satisfied in previous periods.

Contract Acquisition Costs

The September 30, 2019 balance sheet includes current contract acquisition costs of $1.6 million in prepayments and other current assets and long term contract acquisition costs of $1.0 million in other assets. During the three and nine months ended September 30, 2019, the Company amortized $0.5 million and $1.4 million, respectively, of contract acquisition cost.

Remaining Performance Obligations

Remaining performance obligations represent the transaction price allocated to unsatisfied performance obligations of certain multiyear retail wireless contracts, which include a promotional discount, and the Company’s construction and service contracts. The transaction price allocated to unsatisfied performance obligations was $275 million and $12 million at September 30, 2019 and December 31, 2018, respectively. The Company expects to satisfy the majority of the remaining performance obligations and recognize the transaction price within 24 months and the remainder thereafter.

The Company has certain retail, wholesale, and renewable energy contracts where transaction price is allocated to remaining performance obligations. However, the Company omits these contracts from the disclosure by applying the right to invoice, one year or less, and wholly unsatisfied performance obligation practical expedients.

Disaggregation

The Company's revenue is presented on a disaggregated basis in Note 14 based on an evaluation of disclosures outside the financial statements, information regularly reviewed by the chief operating decision makers for evaluating the financial performance of operating segments and other information that is used for performance evaluation and resource allocations. This includes revenue from wireline, wireless and renewable energy, as well as domestic versus international wireline and wireless services. This disaggregation of revenue depicts how the nature, amount, timing and uncertainty of revenue and cash flows are affected by economic factors.