A power source of a LAN terminal at a home such as home server is turned on from the outside the home via the Internet. A home gateway apparatus receives such a start request by proxy and transmits a start instruction packet to corresponding equipment on the home LAN. Although there is a case where the protocols of an external network and the home LAN are different from each other, the home gateway apparatus performs a protocol conversion process for assimilating discrepancy between the protocols. Moreover, on the home LAN, the start instruction packet to the corresponding equipment maybe issued by utilizing a magic packet technique.