Optical fibers constituting optical fiber rows are positioned as pinched between base plates defining numerous positioning V-grooves. The full transmission and reception capabilities of the transceiver are quickly restored when needed, without requiring the full initialization commonly needed to restore such transceivers to operation after inactivity. In a second embodiment of the present invention, the process is highly automated. If the other party’s apparatus does not possess an encryptingdecoding processing function, it is possible to select between terminating communication and performing facsimile communication without executing encryptingdecoding processing.