Embodiments of the present invention provide a called recovery method, including: receiving, by a target mobile switching center MSC, a provide roaming number PRN message sent by a backup MSC corresponding to a faulty MSC, where the PRN message carries an instruction for initiating paging to a called terminal through a mobility management entity MME; and performing international mobile subscriber identity IMSI paging according to the instruction, so that an MME to which a called terminal is attached controls the called terminal to perform circuit switched fallback CSFB to complete a called connection. Correspondingly, the embodiments of the present invention further provide a mobile switching center and a called recovery system. This solves a problem that in an MSC pool architecture, called paging in a CS domain cannot be performed when a terminal corresponding to a faulty MSC is attached to an E-UTRAN, and improves paging reliability.