A portable information terminal provided with a group terminal connection status management section which manages the connection statuses of a plurality of portable information terminals belonging to the same group connected by a tethering function; a host terminal order determination section which determines selection order of a portable information terminal to serve as a host terminal from among the portable information terminals belonging to the same group including its own terminal, based at least on reception quality from the base station, remaining battery capacity, and either a contracted allowable data transmission speed or a maximum data transmission speed notified from a network; and a control section which controls whether to operate as the host terminal or to communicate with the base station via the host terminal, based on the determined selection order.