Patent ID: 7653043

Claim:
A communication method for performing access control so that a communication timing of a data packet will not collide with a communication timing of another data packet transmitted by another station within a network including a plurality of communication stations, the method comprising: transmitting by a sending communication station a packet including a header area and a payload area at a transmission rate that can be modified; including by the sending communication station, in said header, information required for extracting information which is transmitted in the payload of said packet and a field for securing transmission of an acknowledgement packet that is generated by a destination communication station as a result of transmission of said packet; transmitting by the destination communication station the acknowledgment packet, generated as a result of transmission of said packet, the acknowledgment packet including a header area and a payload area, wherein a field is set in the header area of the acknowledgment packet, the field value directly indicating that the acknowledgment packet is generated in response to said packet; and judging, based on information set in the field for securing the transmission of the acknowledgment packet that is generated as a result of the transmission of said packet, whether it is a time when transmission is permitted or a time when transmission is not permitted, wherein when one of the plurality of communication stations judges from a destination address included in a header of a received packet that the packet is not addressed thereto, transmission processing is suspended until time indicated in an access reservation field included in the packet, by judging the access reservation field of said received packet it is confirmed that the packet has not made an access reservation, by judging a category field of said received packet it is confirmed that the packet has been generated as a result of transmission of another packet, and an access right acquisition operation is performed when the station is not in a transmission disapproval state.