The present invention discloses a mobility management method, a serving GPRS support node or mobility management entity (SGSN/MME), and a terminal to solve the problem of setting or dynamically modifying the mobility management frequency of a particular terminal among numerous terminals. The technical solution of the present invention includes: obtaining subscription data of a terminal, where the subscription data carries periodic update (RAU/TAU) setting information; obtaining a periodic update timer of the terminal according to the periodic update setting information; sending the periodic update timer of the terminal to the terminal; and setting a value that is a little longer than the periodic update timer of the terminal as a mobile reachable timer for monitoring the periodic update of the terminal. The embodiments of the present invention may be applied in low-mobility machine-type communication.