Patent ID: 8681798

Claim:
A frame control method for controlling a frame comprising a header area and a data area in a communications system that includes a transmission apparatus and a receiving apparatus and provides a multipath function, the frame control method comprising: attaching, in the transmission apparatus, to the frame, order information indicating a transmission order of the frame and time-to-live information indicating a time period after activation of a timer; outputting, from the transmission apparatus to a network, the frame with the attached order information, via a path selected from a plurality of paths; reading out, in the receiving apparatus, the order information from the data area of the frame newly received through the network; analyzing the order information in the received frame to determine whether a preceding frame that has been transmitted from the transmission apparatus one before the newly received frame and that the receiving apparatus should have received one before the newly received frame is already received or not; transferring the newly received frame to a processing unit in an upper layer of the receiving apparatus, when the receiving apparatus determined that the preceding frame is already received; activating the timer by using the time-to-live information when the receiving apparatus determined that the preceding frame is not received while the newly received frame is received; determining whether the preceding frame is received within the time period after the activation of the timer; transferring the preceding frame to the processing unit when the preceding frame is received within the time period, and then transferring the newly received frame to the processing unit; and discarding the newly received frame that has been transmitted from the transmission apparatus one after the preceding frame when the preceding frame is not received within the time period.