Buyout isn't going to happen anytime soon. Uscc has repeatedly said they aren't on the market. But an rrpp partnership would make a buyout seem like much less of a necessity.
It's been known for a while that Samsung chips are faster, but since Samsung never integrated the modem with the chip, Qualcomm was always cheaper to use. Looks like that equation finally changed.
I doubt that. This won't be a service targeting the boonies. It will be targeted to the cities, most of which have LTE widespread. The lack of low band for building penetration will be less of a problem with WiFi to pick to the slack.
Really T-mobile doesn't have that control to make a plan. They're a minority partner with Iowa Telecom. They've even moved out of the Iowa market and handed it their remaining presence over to iwireless. But it's up to Iowa Telecom on what capex to do and strategic planning with Iwireless.
Not necessarily a slap to Sprint. It might have sold poorly, so Sprint might have been the one that said "no thank you." In which case, ZTE would have tried to find a new carrier partner.