According to the present invention, the host device judges whether or not to grant a connection permission to the wireless communication device. Having been instructed to start the entry processing, the wireless access point device sends a beacon with group identification information made publicly available. Upon reception of the beacon, the wireless communication device performs an authentication processing and an association processing with the wireless access point device and further performs the authentication processing. Having been instructed to end the entry processing, the wireless access point device switches into the sending of the beacon with the group identification information hidden, thereby hiding the group identification information from other wireless access point devices.