A P2P Invitation control unit 215 controls an Invitation function defined by the Wi-Fi Direct standard. The Invitation function causes a GO or a CL to prompt a P2P device whose role has not been determined yet to connect as a P2P client; as the Invitation function is defined by the Wi-Fi Direct specification, a description thereof will be omitted.

An application layer service providing unit 216 provides services at an application layer. An application layer denotes a service providing layer that serves as an upper layer, specifically, layer 5 or higher, in the OSI Reference Model. For example, the application layer service providing unit 216 provides a print function (a print service), an image streaming function (an image streaming service), and a file transfer function (a file transfer service).

An application layer service using unit 217 uses the services provided by a service providing unit at an application layer of an external communication apparatus. That is to say, it controls a function of transmitting a print item to a print service providing apparatus, a function of transmitting moving images to a digital display, and so on.

Note that all of the function blocks shown in FIG. 2 are not limited to being provided by software, and may be provided by hardware. Furthermore, the function blocks shown in FIG. 2 are interrelated. Moreover, the function blocks shown in FIG. 2 serve as examples; among these, multiple function blocks may constitute one function block, and any function block may be further divided into blocks that fulfill multiple functions.