Case 1: If the trigger frame includes the temporary identifier that is allocated by the AP to each available contention subchannel, the first STA that receives the trigger frame learns the temporary identifier of the available contention subchannel. In this case, after obtaining the subchannel by means of contention, the first STA obtains the temporary identifier of the subchannel, and uses, by default, the temporary identifier as a first AID of the first STA. In this case, the association acknowledgement information may include only the MAC address of the one or more second STA. After a first STA receives the M-BA frame, if the first STA reads a MAC address of the first STA from a piece of association acknowledgement information BA/ACK Info, it indicates that the association acknowledgement information BA/ACK Info is an acknowledgement of an association request message sent by the first STA. In this case, the first STA is a second STA. The second STA uses, as a first association identifier AID of the second STA, a temporary identifier of a subchannel previously used for sending an association request message. The second STA in this embodiment is the first STA corresponding to the association request message successfully received by the AP.
Optionally, the M-BA frame further includes the temporary identifier of the available subchannel corresponding to the second STA. That is, although the AP already broadcasts, in the trigger frame, the temporary identifier of each available subchannel, for guarantee, the AP adds, to the M-BA frame again, the temporary identifier of the available subchannel corresponding to the second STA.