Patent ID: 8374194

Claim:
A communication device connected to a plurality of slave station devices having different data transmission rates, which generates a transmission permission signal including a transmission start time and a transmission time of data with respect to each of the plurality of slave station devices in a bandwidth update cycle based on a bandwidth request amount from each of the slave station devices and notifies the slave station devices of the transmission permission signal, the communication device comprising: a bandwidth-update-cycle dividing unit that divides the bandwidth update cycle into slots for each of the data transmission rates based on the bandwidth request amount from each of the slave station devices and a communication quality set for each of the slave station devices; a bandwidth-allocation-amount calculating unit that allocates a bandwidth to each of the slave station devices in a slot of the corresponding data transmission rate; and a transmission-start-time setting unit that sets a transmission start time and a transmission time of data of each of the slave station devices, based on an overhead length of a data frame transmitted by each of the slave station devices, by searching for slave station devices that have data frames with similar overhead lengths, such that overheads of the data frames with the similar overhead lengths overlap each other, the similar overhead lengths corresponding to overhead lengths that are respectively closest in value.