The present invention provides a method and an apparatus for controlling a scheduling packet. The method is applied to an HFC network system. The method includes: determining, by a network device, a transmission bandwidth of a first scheduling packet, where the first scheduling packet includes an IE used to carry resource allocation information for a first uplink period, and the resource allocation information for the first uplink period is used to indicate a transmission resource to be used by user equipment to send uplink data in the first uplink period; determining a target quantity according to a first control threshold when the transmission bandwidth of the first scheduling packet is greater than or equal to the first control threshold, where the target quantity is less than or equal to a quantity of IEs included in the first scheduling packet; and generating a second scheduling packet according to the target quantity, where a quantity of IEs included in the second scheduling packet is less than the target quantity, the second scheduling packet includes an IE used to carry resource allocation information for a second uplink period, and the second uplink period follows the first uplink period. Therefore, downlink data transmission is less affected by a scheduling packet, downlink bandwidth usage is improved, and system performance is improved.