Wireless communication apparatus, communication method, and communication system

A wireless communication apparatus capable of transmitting and receiving a physical layer frame, the apparatus comprising:

• a reception unit that receives a frame indicating start of a medium protection operation, and acquires, from the frame indicating the start of the medium protection operation, an identification information for identifying a first basic service set (BSS) to which a transmission-source wireless communication apparatus of the frame indicating the start of the medium protection operation belongs;
• and
• a transmission unit that determines whether or not to start a transmission operation of a frame addressed to another wireless communication apparatus belonging to a second BSS to which the wireless communication apparatus belongs based on the identification information,
• wherein the reception unit configures a network allocation vector (NAV) in a case where the BBS identification information indicates the second BSS to which the wireless communication apparatus belongs, and
• the start of the transmission operation of the frame addressed to the other wireless communication apparatus is prohibited in a case where the frame addressed to the other wireless communication apparatus is a frame for requesting a frame reply and a period during which the frame reply is expected matches a period during which the transmission-source wireless communication apparatus of the frame indicating the start of the medium protection operation performs frame transmission in whole or part within a period during which the medium protection operation is reserved.