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Fair Value Measurements | 3 Months Ended
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Mar. 31, 2015
Disclosure Text Block |
Fair Value Measurements | 2. Fair Value Measurements As of March 31, 2015 and December 31, 2014, U.S. Cell ular 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 assets or Level 1 assets. U.S. Cellular 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, 2015 |  | December 31, 2014
|  |  | Book Value |  |  | Fair Value |  | Book Value |  | Fair Value
(Dollars in thousands) |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
Cash and cash equivalents | 1 |  | $ | 336,893 |  | $ | 336,893 |  | $ | 211,513 |  | $ | 211,513
Long-term debt |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| Retail | 2 |  |  | 617,000 |  |  | 625,855 |  |  | 617,000 |  |  | 608,462
| Institutional | 2 |  |  | 532,793 |  |  | 526,199 |  |  | 532,722 |  |  | 513,647
The fair value of Cash and cash equivalents approximate their book values 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 the 6.95% Senior Notes and 7.25% Senior Notes. U.S. Cellular's “Institutional” debt consists of the 6.7% Senior Notes which are traded over the counter. U.S. Cellular estimated the fair value of its Institutional debt through a discounted cash flow analysis using an estimated yield to maturity of 7.02% and 7.25% at March 31, 2015 and December 31, 2014, respectively.

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- Definition The entire disclosure of the fair value measurement of assets and liabilities, which includes financial instruments measured at fair value that are classified in shareholders' equity, which may be measured on a recurring or nonrecurring basis. + References Reference 1: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/presentationRef -Publisher FASB -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Topic 820 -SubTopic 10 -Section 50 -Paragraph 3 -URI http://asc.fasb.org/extlink&oid=36462937&loc=d3e19279-110258 Reference 2: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/presentationRef -Publisher FASB -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Topic 820 -SubTopic 10 -Section 50 -Paragraph 1 -URI http://asc.fasb.org/extlink&oid=36462937&loc=d3e19190-110258 Reference 3: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/presentationRef -Publisher FASB -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Topic 820 -SubTopic 10 -Section 50 -Paragraph 2 -URI http://asc.fasb.org/extlink&oid=36462937&loc=d3e19207-110258 + Details
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