Patent ID: 8326921

Claim:
A data communication apparatus comprising: a content acquirer that stores a plurality of content items; a display that displays a plurality of content areas, each of the plurality of the content areas indicating an area corresponding to one of the plurality of the content items; a communicator that is mounted on the display and in which a plurality of communication elements communicating with a user terminal are arranged in a grid pattern; a content-related information acquirer that periodically acquires and updates statistical information related to each of the plurality of the content items from a network as content-related information; a correspondence information creator that creates correspondence information for each content item of the plurality of the content items, based on the content-related information, the correspondence information for each content item of the plurality of the content items indicating a correspondence between the content item, a subset of the plurality of the communication elements, and one of the plurality of the content areas; a communication element controller that establishes for each content item of the plurality of the content items, based on the correspondence information, transfer settings for transferring the content item to the corresponding subset of the communication elements; and a transferor that transfers each content item of the plurality of the content items to the corresponding subset of the plurality of the communication elements according to the transfer settings established for the content item, when the user terminal is positioned over the corresponding one of the plurality of the content areas and a connection request is received from the user terminal through the corresponding subset of the plurality of the communication elements.