[Problem] Provided are an error correction code control method and apparatus wherein a single error correction circuit is used to be able to support even a communication system in which the unevenness or variation of error rates is significant. [Solution] An encoder (113) of a transmission-side communication apparatus (11) and a decoder (133) of a reception-side communication apparatus (13) implement a predetermined error correction code. There are included a fixed pattern error rate calculator (136) that estimates a first error rate from a received code word received from the transmission-side communication apparatus, and an error correction code controller (112, 132) that uses the first error rate and a second error rate, which is estimated on the basis of an error correction performed when the decoder decodes the received code word, to determine the encoding rate of the predetermined error correction code on the basis of the characteristic of the predetermined error correction code.
