The board of directors at SpeedNet Inc. was expected to endorse the resignation of President Yutaka Shinto at its extraordinary meeting Friday, company sources said.
Shinto, 52, appeared to be resigning to take responsibility for the delay to the company's project to set up its own Internet access system, the sources said.
The company, a joint venture of Softbank Corp., Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Microsoft Corp. of the United States, was set up last September to offer a high-speed, low-cost, wireless Internet-access service from this summer on the strength of Tepco's existing fiber-optic cable network.
The envisioned service would allow Internet users unlimited access for a minimal fixed fee.
But company officials, during the course of a recent feasibility study, have begun to question whether the venture would be able to operate profitably and offer high-quality transmission.
Yutaka Shinto is a son of former Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. President Hisashi Shinto.