Cingular & AT&T???
The two companies already share some tower space and the cost for rolling out GSM. I think this was agreed to last year. As far as which areas the two companies share towers, I do not know.
As far the actual merger, it still has to be approved by the AWS shareholders and the FCC, as well as other entities I'm sure.
We are being told that the overall time for merger should be about a year to a year and a half. Could be longer, could shorter. As an AWS employee, I was there during the Suncom buyout/merger, and it took almost a year from the announcement date before everything was integrated into the AWS systems.
Unofficially, I think the powers-that-be consulted with the major shareholders and got some input on what would be accepted and what would not. Therefore, I think that they went into the agreement with Cingular already knowing that the major shareholders would approve the deal.
Just my opinion, of course....