A communication device including a first communication device and a plurality of second communication devices in an optical access system in which a first communication device and the plurality of second communication devices perform communications with each other under a time division multiple access scheme includes an Ethernet controller configured to implement the communications as Ethernet (registered trademark) communications, and a link failure processing unit configured to output, in response to reception of a link failure notification for notifying occurrence of a link failure in the communications from the first communication device, a termination instruction to terminate data transmission when the communication device is performing the data transmission to the first communication device, and a start instruction to start the data transmission after recovery from the link failure when the communication device is not performing the data transmission to the first communication device.