In some special cases, the second DCI may fail to be sent. For example, the second power saving signal cannot be sent due to limited resources. To reduce impact caused by the second power saving signal being blocked and improve power saving performance of the power saving signal, in this embodiment of this application, when the first DCI is a first bit sequence value, the first DCI may be used to indicate the plurality of terminal devices to monitor a data channel and/or a control channel in the first time period, or indicate all terminal devices in a cell to monitor a data channel and/or a control channel in the first time period. In other words, one status value of the first DCI may be reserved for waking up the entire group of terminal devices. Because the first power saving signal is a shared signal, and a priority of the first power saving signal is usually higher than that of a specific signal, when resources are limited, there is a low probability that the first power saving signal cannot be sent. Therefore, the impact caused by the second power saving signal being blocked can be reduced, and the power saving performance of the power saving signal can be improved.

Optionally, the first bit sequence value may mean that all bits of the first DCI are 0 or 1.

It may be understood that in this embodiment of this application, at least one bit may be further added to the first DCI, and is specifically used to wake up the entire group of terminal devices.

Optionally, to distinguish between the first DCI and the second DCI, the first DCI and the second DCI may use different radio network temporary identifiers (RNTIs).

In 520: The network device sends the first DCI and the second DCI to the terminal device.