A method includes: receiving, by a terminal, time-frequency configuration information from a network side, where the time-frequency configuration information is used to indicate a random access channel (RACH) time-frequency resource; receiving, by the terminal, spatial configuration information from the network side, where the spatial configuration information is used to indicate an RACH spatial resource; forming, by the terminal, at least one beam based on the spatial configuration information, and sending, by using the at least one beam, a random access preamble to the network side on all or part of the RACH time-frequency resource indicated by the time-frequency configuration information; and receiving, by the terminal, a random access response (RAR) for the random access preamble from the network side.