According to a twelfth aspect, a downlink information sending apparatus is provided, including: a determining module, configured to determine time information, where the time information is used to indicate a time at which user equipment receives downlink information; a first sending module, configured to send DCI or a system message to the user equipment; a receiving module, configured to receive uplink data sent by the user equipment; and a second sending module, configured to send the downlink information to the user equipment at a time indicated by the time information, where the downlink information is used to indicate whether the receiving module receives the uplink data correctly, where the DCI or the system message carries the time information, and the time information specifically includes an interval from a preset time point to a time at which uplink information is sent; or the DCI further carries scheduling information, excluding the time information, of the user equipment and scheduling information of another user equipment, the user equipment and the another user equipment form a user equipment set, and the time information carried in the DCI specifically includes a sequence number of the user equipment in the user equipment set for sending the uplink information after a preset time point, where the preset time point is a parameter received by the user equipment from the DCI or the system message, or a parameter preset in the user equipment.