A radio communication system for leveling off the processing loads of radio stations (access points) to which mobile terminals are connected, to improve the quality of service in radio communication. A mobile terminal searches for a beacon signal and transmits a connection request to a radio station which has sent the beacon signal captured. In the access point, a beacon-signal transmission section transmits the beacon signal, a connection-count management section manages, according to a connection-completion message, a local-station connection count and an other-station connection count, and a connection processing section receives the connection request, performs comparison processing for the local-station connection count and the other-station connection count, applies, when the local-station connection count is smaller than the other-station connection count, connection processing to the mobile terminal and generates a connection-completion message when a connection to the mobile terminal is completed.