A semi-orthogonal transmission-based communication method and a device, with the method including receiving, by first user equipment, downlink control information sent by a base station, where the downlink control information includes at least one of downlink control parameter of the first user equipment, pairing layer information of the first user equipment, modulation scheme information of second user equipment, power allocation information, an identifier of the first user equipment, or pairing information, and receiving, by the first user equipment, a data signal of an associated user equipment group that is sent by the base station, by the first user equipment, the data signal of the first user equipment according to the downlink control information and the data signal of the associated user equipment group.