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Fair Value Measurements | 3 Months Ended
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Mar. 31, 2018
Fair Value Disclosures [Abstract] |
Fair Value Measurements | Note 3 Fair Value Measurements As of March 31, 2018 and December 31, 2017, U.S. Cellular did not have any material 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, 2018 |  | December 31, 2017
|  |  |  | Book Value |  | Fair Value |  | Book Value |  | Fair Value
(Dollars in millions) |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
Cash and cash equivalents | 1 |  | $ | 509 |  | $ | 509 |  | $ | 352 |  | $ | 352
Short-term investments | 1 |  |  | – |  |  | – |  |  | 50 |  |  | 50
Long-term debt |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| Retail | 2 |  |  | 917 |  |  | 944 |  |  | 917 |  |  | 939
| Institutional | 2 |  |  | 534 |  |  | 555 |  |  | 534 |  |  | 522
| Other | 2 |  |  | 188 |  |  | 188 |  |  | 191 |  |  | 191
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. Long-term debt excludes capital lease obligations, other installment arrangements, the current portion of Long-term debt and debt financing costs. The fair value of “Retail” Long-term debt was estimated using market prices for the 6.95% Senior Notes, 7.25% 2063 Senior Notes and 7.25% 2064 Senior Notes. U.S. Cellular’s “Institutional” debt consists of the 6.7% Senior Notes which are traded over the counter. U.S. Cellular’s “Other” debt consists of a senior term loan credit facility. U.S. Cellular 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 4.58% to 6.34% and 4.74% to 7.13% at March 31, 2018 and December 31, 2017, 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 -URI http://asc.fasb.org/topic&trid=2155941 + Details
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