Patent ID: 8270297

Claim:
A communication device, comprising: a communication unit including plural function operation units performing communication with an external device at plural prescribed communication speeds, the plural prescribed communication speeds corresponding to data transfer rates of a wireless local area network; and a control unit configured to, allow the communication unit to receive a content data from the external device, estimate an optimum prescribed communication speed in which a power consumption amount becomes smallest from the plural prescribed communication speeds based on a bit rate of the content data, one of the plural prescribed communication speeds, and an actual communication speed calculated during the receiving of the content data, the bit rate corresponding to a compression rate of the content data, and the content data including at least one of audio and video multimedia content, select a given function operation unit from the plural function operation units based on the estimated optimum communication speed, allow the selected function operation unit to receive the content data at the estimated prescribed communication speed, and control power consumption to the function operation units other than the function operation unit selected from the plural function operation units to be less than a fixed value.