A contention based resource configuration method is disclosed. The method includes: configuring, by a network device, a contention based resource parameter, wherein the contention based resource parameter comprises one or any combination of the following: a period and/or a frequency of a contention based resource block, the number of contention based resource blocks allocated once, a size of the contention based resource block, a modulation and coding scheme, and expected reception power; and notifying, by the network device, a user equipment of the contention based resource parameter. Through the technical solutions provided by the embodiments of the present invention, a network side may allocate a contention based resource more properly, and the user equipment may know the contention based resource parameter and use the contention based resource more properly and flexibly.