In this application, a quantity of indicated candidate TACs/indexes and a quantity of bits used for indication are not limited, and an indicated TAC value should be less than or equal to 3846, to reduce a time gap between a message 2 and a message 3.
Further, the indicated TAC or TA may be closest to a largest TAC or TA of one or more terminals within cell/beam coverage.
After receiving an index, the terminal determines the maximum TA based on the subcarrier spacing of the message 3. A calculation formula is as follows: Maximum TA=TAC*unit.