Patent ID: 8352989

Claim:
A content reproduction device that performs streaming reproduction of a content, the device comprising: a plurality of communication units that receive, in parallel, segmented data of a content, the content being a same content, transmitted from a content transmission device over a communication path, a part of the segmented data of the content being received by one of the plurality of communication units and another part of the segmented data of the content being received by another one of the plurality of communication units, the segmented data having data amounts adjusted based on a transmission speed which enables communication; a content reconstruction unit having a buffer in which the segmented data received by the plurality of communication units is temporarily accumulated, and that reconstructs the segmented data accumulated in the buffer into the content; a reproduction unit that extracts the content from the buffer at a predetermined bit rate and that reproduces the content at the predetermined bit rate, the content having been reconstructed by the content reconstruction unit; a communication fee storage unit which stores, in advance, communication fees of the plurality of communication units; and a communication control unit that: calculates, for every predetermined time, target transmission speeds to be assigned for content reception by causing the target transmission speeds to associate respectively with the plurality of communication units, based on free space in the buffer and the bit rate; and transmits a first request signal indicating the calculated target transmission speeds corresponding to the plurality of communication units to the content transmission device via one of the plurality of communication units, wherein the segmented data includes counters indicating an order of the segmentation performed by the content transmission device, and the content reconstruction unit reconstructs the content by extracting the segmented data accumulated in the buffer in the order of values indicated by respective counters, wherein the content transmission device transmits the segmented data of the content to be received, in parallel, by the plurality of communication units at a transmission speed adjusted based on the first request signal, and the plurality of communication units receive, in parallel, the segmented data of the content transmitted from the content transmission device at the transmission speed adjusted by the content transmission device based on the first request signal, wherein the communication control unit determines the target transmission speeds of the plurality of communication units based on the communication fees, and wherein the streaming reproduction is achievable even when the transmission speed of one communication unit is less than a transmission speed assigned to the content for streaming.