Patent ID: 8315270

Claim:
A communication method of communicating among a plurality of communication apparatuses connected to a transmission channel and sharing a communication band, the communication method comprising: a slot ID updating step of sequentially updating a slot ID with the lapse of time by a first communication apparatus, the slot ID for identifying a specific slot from a plurality of slots representing division of transmission time; a first transmitting step of transmitting first data and a first access ID to the transmission channel by the first communication apparatus after the lapse of a first waiting time and when the slot ID is updated to a first slot ID corresponding to the first access ID assigned to the first communication apparatus, during a carrier non-sense period when no carrier is sensed on the transmission channel; a first receiving step of receiving the first access ID by a second communication apparatus; a second transmitting step of transmitting second data and a second access ID to the transmission channel by a second communication apparatus after the lapse of a second waiting time longer than the first waiting time, during a carrier non-sense period when no carrier is sensed on the transmission channel, the second communication apparatus using the received first access ID as the second access ID; and a second receiving step of receiving the second slot ID by the first communication apparatus, wherein, in the slot ID updating step, the slot ID is updated to a slot ID subsequent to a slot ID corresponding to the second access ID.