50 cash. The agreement could be announced as soon as july. One tv host ranting about internet fast lanes, creating a buzz, tens of thousands of comments flooding the fcc after hbo host john oliver urged viewers to go to the fccs website and give them comments in support of Net Neutrality. It caused the website to go down for a brief time. Alibaba wants to go public on august 8. They see 8 8 as a good omen for the ipo because the number 8 in chinese considered lucky. The alibaba management is also said to prefer baba for the Ticker Symbol for alibaba. Why not. Amazon is about to jump into the crowded smartphone market, unveiling a smartphone later this month. Amazon tweeted that it is holding an event in seattle on june 18 with Ceo Jeff Bezos scheduled to make an appearance. The tweet included a picture of a thin device with the amazon name on it. It would be the latest equipment from amazon. We helped break the story. Adam, a phone is provocative, i think, not just because it is a phone but one wonders what it will cost. Like, could it be free . What kind of things will they do to juice sales . Amazon is a fascinating company, so there will be all sorts of interest in the specifications of the phone, but also the Business Model that amazon and jeff bezos may have something up their sleeves, a new way of selling the device, priced in a different way. A lot of anticipation in the next couple weeks. You also wonder how customized it might be. Presumably they will use android software, but maybe not. They have been using a variation, their own customization of the android for their other devices like the kindle fire and tablets, getting into the market for a new way for amazon to sell all the sorts of other content they have. They are not like apple where they are looking to get 30 , 40 margins on the sales of devices. Jeff bezos has shown that he will sell these at essentially cost and look to make money on the sale of music, movies or maybe just make revenue, not profits. When you are looking at a company with a less than 1 margins in any given quarter, they could have a phone that could be very cost competitive. Absolutely, but it is an incredibly competitive market. The only two Companies Really making money in smartphones right now are apple and samsung. That could be an advantage for amazon in that they are not looking to make money on the device. There was the contention made that so many Big Tech Companies we think of as very different apple, google, amazon they really have the same infrastructure, with server farms, highspeed fiber. It is interesting to see amazons Business Model move a lot closer to apples, making devices and selling digital content. An event like this really shows how far the business has come from being just a bookseller. Meanwhile, they are having this very public fight with hachette, the book publisher. This sort of shows the attention they are giving, that jeff bezos is giving. It has been the joke that people would buy everything but books from amazon. Adam, thank you very much. Sprint nearing an agreement for an acquisition of tmobile in the u. S. They say sprint will offer 50 stock and 50 cash for tmobile, leaving Deutsche Telekom with a 15 stake in the combined company. Joining us on this developing story is alex sherman, who helped break the story. Alex, whats the scoop . The scoop is the sides have been talking about a deal for months, maybe even years. They are finally reaching at least the financial terms on the deal, meaning the price, which we hear will be close to 40 per share for tmobile. Today they closed at about 34 and change, so a little premium for that. They are also close to a termination fee, which has been a point of contention all the way back to when at t was trying to purchase tmobile for about 6 billion in cash and assets. They have not wanted to pay a termination fee that high, so the termination fee is expected to be lower than that. We still dont know the exact details, although we hear they want to pay about 1 billion. Deutsche telekom wanted about 2 billion, so figure somewhere in between. They are almost ready to shake hands on a cash stock offer. The termination fee is not inconsequential, not because of the numbers, but the Justice Department has looked at tmobile and thought maybe they should stand alone. That has been a big point, they do not want to pay a large termination fee. When you look at comcasttime warner, at tdirectv, no termination fees on those deals. Theyre hoping to dovetail off those deals and maybe take advantage of the wind of telecom reform. Theyre hoping to come in on the backs of these and be approved. Alex sherman, thank you very much. Still ahead, can a tv host slow down the creation of internet fast lanes . The fight over Net Neutrality heats up thanks to a compelling piece on hbo. And how did a 4yearold company overtake apple in china . We will find out tomorrow on a special edition of bloomberg west. From the flagship mi3 smartphone to its ambitious Global Expansion plans, we will have a look at all things xiaomi, one of apples biggest threats in china. Welcome back to bloomberg west. Im cory johnson. The fcc is getting a growing backlash in its plans to redefine Net Neutrality, tens of thousands of people flocking to the fcc website after john oliver urged viewers to post comments supporting Net Neutrality. Thats right, the fcc are literally inviting internet comments at this address. At this point, and i cannot believe im about to do this, i would like to address the internet commentary out there directly. Good evening, monsters. The fcc website crashed following the oliver speech. I spoke with reed hundt and asked if he had ever seen anything like this. Back in the day, in the 1990s, we had aol, steve case was the ceo. He arranged the first email of political lobbying in history, 400,000 emails sent to the United States congress to tell them to keep the internet open. Its the same issue many, many years later. The power of the net roots has grown and the fcc chairman is getting an earful. No kidding. On some level, i feel like i have not done a great job of explaining what this is about. The notion of Net Neutrality i think is sinking in, the notion that some things will be allowed to come to you faster if Certain Companies pay for that, but there is a bigger regulatory framework. I wonder when you were at the fcc how you tried to position the internet and what was relative then in terms of trying to regulate it. The fundamental view of the fcc ever since i was there in the Clinton Administration has been that the internet really ought to be open to all users, and that includes people who put content out and people who just want to see the content, and it ought to be neutral in the sense that anybody can put content out and anybody can access it. I am on the board of assia, and we are launching this friday a particular application which anybody can download for free onto a smartphone. If you download it, you will be up to measure in your house your wifi speed and find out if you actually are getting the internet that you paid for. If you order from comcast 100 megabits per second, you will be able to measure and determine if youre getting it. The key with the fcc is you ought to be able to go as fast as you purchased. You ought to be able to go in the fast lane that you chose to any website with any content. I think this is sort of a fundamental belief about business and government responsibility. Fundamentally, if comcast has to deliver everything at the same speed, they take on a greater cost for the burden of what, for the benefit of whom . For the benefit of you and me. The question is, do you want the cable guy or the Cellular Company to be between you and the content . Well, they are between you and the content, but do you also want them to close some doors and open others, slow some access speeds, increase others . That is the fundamental issue at the fcc. The starting point is you ought to be able to know that youre getting what you paid for. That is what the free assia application will permit you to do, to know that youre getting what you paid for. If someone else were to have that kind of control, it raises some big free speech issues. I was surprised to see john oliver, of all people, take this on in a funny way. Let me play you a brief clip. These companies have washington in their pockets to a conveniently, almost unbelievable degree. Comcast has spent 18 million in lobbying last year, more than any other company besides lockheed martin. Just to be clear, the ranking of who buys government influence is, number one, militaryindustrial complex and, number two, the provider of lizard lick. Bloomberg west viewers got a little of that before john oliver showed it. What about this sort of revolving door concern, the concern that tom wheeler and others cannot be fair because they have gotten so much influence from lobbyists in washington . Back when the internet was in its founding days, in the green of youth, all of us in washington i remember us sitting in Vice President gores office, we wanted it to be a platform for grassroots democracy. Now they call that net roots, but what youre seeing in these comments to the fcc is what we hoped for. We would hope that everybody could log onto the fcc website sorry that it crashed, it needs to be beefed up but log on and submit comments. I want people to download this free app from assia, measure their bandwidth, and tell the fcc whether you are getting what you paid for. If you are getting what you paid for, compliment your cable guy or your cellular provider. And its a free app. There is, however, in the u. S. , even when its as advertised, it is pathetic compared with some of the other countries who have internet access, period. Theres nothing wrong with whining about it. Download the free app, send a message to the fcc if youre not getting what you paid for. Tell them that you dont want to be in japan in order to get fast internet. Reed hundt, really appreciate your time. Thank you very much. Coming up, alibabas ipo, choosing a bid for the ecommerce giants trading debut. Thats next. You can watch us streaming on your tablet, phone, bloomberg. Com, and apple tv. And how did a 4yearold company overtake apple in china . Find out tomorrow. The flagship mi3 smartphone, its a leader, and its Global Expansion plan an indepth look at all things xiaomi, one of apples biggest threats in china. Welcome back to bloomberg west. Googles planning a new email privacy tool to prevent the nsa and others from snooping, promising that email will remain encrypted until the recipient decodes it. Google has released the source code and wants developers to do some heavy testing before it is released as a chrome extension. Alibaba hoping for a good fortune when u. S. Trading begins. The company is targeting august 8 for its ipo because the word ba means 8 in chinese, which means good fortune. They also prefer having baba as their Ticker Symbol. Joining us to talk about the alibaba ipo is jeff. Look, this is a challenge. Its interesting, first of all, culturally, but its a challenge to get a deal like this done, let alone in summer, let alone with a target date. You raise a number of good points. In the perfect market, the perfect time, a 20 billion ipo will be challenging to do. Its one of the largest ever and likely to be one of the largest ever. August 8 perhaps fits the window where you are early enough in august to avoid interrupting banker vacations and avoid the real slump that happens in the second half of august where the market slows down and trading volumes follow. But they are not wed to august 8. They would like to do it, they would like to have the Ticker Symbol, but they are realistic, they are businessmen. If it doesnt work, theyll push it past labor day, which is the normal timeframe for an ipo. This is such a big deal, like landing a 747 on an aircraft carrier, and the market has not been as strong as it was in the fall when they were bringing together plans for this. I think it has worked out reasonably well in some respects that the tech selloff happened in the spring, the march, april, may timeframe. Really . They didnt want to come in at the peak with everyone else, when all these other tech stocks were up and the tech investors were exhausted and had put their money in a lot of other places. If there is a selloff, you dont want a selloff that runs right up to this hypothetical august 8 ipo, but a selloff a quarter before or a few months before is not the worst thing in the world. The other thing about the august date, google did an ipo in august, so it can be done. 10 years ago this summer, that was googles, at the time one of the biggest ipos. This could be the biggest ipo in the history of ipos, forget technology. Its hard to imagine that in the summertime they would drum up enough support. You have sort of suggested that the vacations, you have to have these shoppers in the stores in front of their screens to buy this. It is also, the key the Retail Investors are nice, but the big Institutional Investors are the ones who really matter. You need some people to take this, the fidelity of the world and the blackrock of the world for any large ipo, you need them to take a couple Percentage Points of any deal. It will be key that you are able to have a good road show through july, early august, to get a deal of this size done. Jeff, this is a big rock in the middle of the pond. I wonder what ripples and other deals we will see affected by this. You know what i think really plays a role is not just the ipo landscape but also the m a landscape because this deal, softbank has a big stake here, and you also see alibaba doing their own acquisitions. They have done a number of acquisitions already. They are constantly on the prowl, looking for others, and once they have the ipo and they have a valuation attached to the company and they can sell shares in a deal if they want to, it gets easier for them to pursue deals. The impact of the ipo is more broad, the trillion dollar, multitrillion dollar m a as well. Interesting. Jeff mccracken, thank you. Thank you. Tune in tomorrow for a special edition of bloomberg west. Xiaomi rising, looking at the smartphone maker that went from a scrappy startup to one of apples biggest threats in four years. That is tomorrow on a special bloomberg west at 1 00 eastern, 10 00 pacific. In business today, the walkandtalk meeting. I hit the trail with the linkedin ceo. Why he says no to the traditional power lunch. Time for on the markets. The equity markets, stocks traded higher across the board. The s p 500 with a record high, record high every day, but that is exactly where we are. Adp jobs report, not too impressive, but the beige book painted an optimistic picture of the u. S. Economy. Youre watching bloomberg west, where we cover innovation, technology, and the future of business. Im cory johnson. The traditional business meeting may be the latest thing that Silicon Valley is making obsolete. Many top executives are taking a page from the late steve jobs and shunning the Conference Room in favor of the walkandtalk. Linkedins ceo is known for taking walks with team members on some of their trails at their Mountain View campus. I spoke with him to see why he is taking it to the streets. Show me the way. This is your regular walk . This is where it all begins. Tell me why you started. It was practical at first. When we were at the earliest stages of hypergrowth, we were in the throes of facility planning. At one time, we had a lot of people and not enough space. One of our folks, who was actually responsible for training and fitness, he said, ive got a great idea in addition to reducing the demand for Conference Rooms, you will actually be in better shape, just doing your meetings while walking around. This was apparently something they had already started, and i started sharing that with people in the office. When i heard it, i thought it was so clever. Basically, you do not want to spend more time in Conference Rooms . We have actually built out and continue to expand. We are in 26 cities around the world, we have a big and growing presence in san francisco, we have a Big Office Space in sunnyvale. I think this is a natural expansion of the hypergrowth of the company. You will find inflection points where people very practically have to watch out for one of the hazards. Practically speaking, you have to come up with solutions. Its funny, it is so easily overlooked, things like facilities. What kind of things do you get in a walkandtalk you do not get in others . First of all, it would be hard to say, but getting out of the office, getting outside just changes the whole state of things. Its incredible scenery. Its beautiful weather in northern california. There is something about being outside that i think in and of itself is a huge benefit. Thats one. Two, i think people connect better when they are walking together. Maybe they are more direct and candid because they are not making direct eye contact, the comfort with being in the outdoors. Something clearly changes. Another interesting part of it is it minimizes distractions. There is no checking email. When we are walking together, im certainly not doing this. People can interrupt us. We are not walking in the office. Thats the nature of the times, to some extent, enabling you to get away from that and getting dialed in and focused. That was linkedin ceo jeff wiener on the mean streets of Mountain View, california. Pandora is facing a new challenge with the u. S. Justice department reviewing decades of old agreements for songwriter royalties. It could change how much pandora has to pay songwriters each time their songs are played. Jon erlichman is in los angeles, in the thick of things with the music industry. This is a big deal for pandora. This is a story you have covered as well, cory. Songwriters generally feel like in the process of music being played, they get a raw deal. They get less than pe