Patent ID: 7085233

Claim:
A method for controlling communications among a plurality of terminals coupled to each other to form a network in which a mixture of isochronous data and anisochronous data is serially transmitted, said method comprising: dividing time into cycles, and providing an isochronous region and an anisochronous region for each cycle; determining by a destination terminal, after each terminal transmits, for each cycle, the isochronous data using the isochronous region in a time division manner, whether or not the isochronous data has been successfully received; instructing an originating terminal of the isochronous data to retransmit the isochronous data by using the anisochronous region when there is any terminal that has not successfully received the isochronous data; and suspending retransmission of the isochronous data even though a reception error is not cleared when a time consumed by one more retransmission presumably exceeds a predetermined maximum time allowed, for each cycle, to be consumed for retransmitting the isochronous data, wherein said instructing is carried out repetitively until the isochronous data is successfully received.