Communication terminal and network unit in information offering system, terminal identifying information setting method, information offering system, and fixed-length cell transmitting and receiving unit in information communication system

摘要

A communication terminal in an information offering system used through an ATM network providing, for example, multicast connections. The information offering system is equipped with an information offering unit and a network unit accommodating a plurality of communication terminals including the communication terminal through lines and made to offer desired information transmitted from the information offering unit through a virtual path and virtual channel set peculiarly to the information to the communication terminal. The communication terminal comprises an identifying information inserting section for inserting information for identifying one of the communication terminals being the sender as terminal identifying information into data to be transmitted to the information offering unit side and a transmitting section for transmitting the data undergoing the insertion of the terminal identifying information in the identifying information inserting section through the virtual path and the virtual channel. Thus, the service offering side can recognize and identify the service receiving terminal side without using the connection of an ATM virtual channel different from the ATM virtual channel being in the multicast connection.