Property Plant And Equipment

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2012

Disclosure Text Block

Property, Plant and Equipment

NOTE 10 PROPERTY, PLANT AND EQUIPMENT

U.S. Cellular's Property, plant and equipment in service and under construction, and related accumulated depreciation and amortization, as of December 31, 2012 and 2011 were as follows:

		Useful Lives
December 31,		(Years)	2012		2011
(Dollars in thousands)
	Land	N/A	$	33,947	$	30,807
	Buildings	20		341,852		330,925
	Leasehold and land improvements	1-30		1,188,720		1,129,818
	Cell site equipment	6-25		3,100,916		2,874,397
	Switching equipment	1-8		1,155,114		1,113,780
	Office furniture and equipment	3-5		535,656		570,776
	Other operating assets and equipment	5-25		128,290		127,253
	System development	3-7		631,184		545,193
	Work in process	N/A		362,749		285,500
				7,478,428		7,008,449
	Accumulated depreciation and amortization			(4,455,840)		(4,218,147)
			$	3,022,588	$	2,790,302

U.S. Cellular's depreciation and amortization expense totaled $597.7million, $565.1 million and $559.0 million in 2012, 2011 and 2010, respectively. As a result of the Divestiture Transaction, U.S. Cellular recognized incremental depreciation and amortization in 2012. See Note 7– Acquisitions, Divestitures and Exchanges for additional information.

TDS Telecom's (including ILEC, CLEC, and HMS) Property, plant and equipment in service and under construction, andrelated accumulated depreciation, as of December 31, 2012 and 2011were as follows:

		Useful Lives
December 31,		(Years)		2012		2011
(Dollars in thousands)
	Land	N/A	$	9,004	$	9,004
	Buildings	30		147,177		135,883
	Cable and wire	15-20		1,445,270		1,410,706
	Network electronic equipment	5-12		888,425		853,458
	Office furniture and equipment	5-10		312,843		286,593
	Other equipment	10-15		127,566		114,788
	System development	3-7		196,185		165,812
	Work in process	N/A		87,043		88,924
				3,213,513		3,065,168
	Accumulated depreciation and amortization			(2,279,325)		(2,128,411)
			$	934,188	$	936,757

The provision for TDS Telecom'sILEC companies' depreciation as a percentage of depreciable property was5.5%in 2012, 5.5% in 2011 and 5.7% in 2010.TDS Telecom's depreciation and amortization expense related to Property, plant and equipment totaled $177.3 million, $168.2million and $165.9million in 2012, 2011 and 2010, respectively.

Corporate and other Property, plant and equipment in service and under construction, and related accumulated depreciation, as of December 31, 2012 and 2011 were as follows:

December 31,	2012		2011
(Dollars in thousands)
Property, plant and equipment	$	116,558	$	123,979
Accumulated depreciation and amortization		(76,068)		(66,503)
Total	$	40,490	$	57,476

Corporate and other fixed assets consist of assets at the TDS corporate offices,Suttle-Straus and Airadigm. Corporate and other depreciation and amortization expense related to Property, plant and equipment totaled $10.3million,$8.3 million and $7.3 million in 2012, 2011 and 2010, respectively.

In 2012, 2011 and 2010, (Gain) loss on asset disposals and exchanges, netincluded charges of $19.7 million, $11.0million and $11.8 million, respectively, related to disposals of assets, trade-ins of older assets for replacement assets and other retirements of assets from service in the normal course of business. The 2011 (Gain) loss on asset disposals and exchanges, net also included a gain on the exchange of licenses, as described in Note 7 — Acquisitions, Divestitures and Exchanges.