Patent ID: 7120158

Claim:
A communication apparatus for transmitting multiple flows of packet data including bandwidth-guaranteed flow, said apparatus comprising: timing deciding unit for determining transmission timing of packets of said bandwidth-guaranteed flow; and packet transmitting unit for transmitting leading packet data in a packet queue according to accumulation capacity of tokens, at a timing set by said timing deciding means, wherein said packet transmitting unit subtract the size of said transmitted packet from said accumulation capacity of said tokens following transmitting said packet data at the head of said packet queue, said multiple flows of packet data include best-effort flow along with bandwidth-guaranteed flow. said packet transmitting means transmit said best-effort flow packet data at a timing wherein said bandwidth-guaranteed flow packet data is not being transmitted, said packet transmitting means perform transmission of each packet data by time-division multiplex, transmission timing appropriated to each of said packet data is real-time, and wherein time at which said packet data is actually transmittable is managed as virtual time, and said best-effort flow packet data is transmitted only in the event that said virtual time is ahead of said real-time.