Embodiments of this application provide methods for detecting or sending a discovery signal, associated base station, and associated user equipment. A method includes: performing, by a base station, first carrier sense on first R subframes of one radio frame in a time sequence in a first discovery signal measurement timing (DMTC) window; and if the first carrier sense succeeds, sending, by the base station, a discovery signal in M consecutive subframes, where M is greater than or equal to 2, and the first subframe of the M consecutive subframes is located in the radio frame in the first DMTC window. The embodiments of this application are used to support enhanced discovery signal transmission by using a new DMTC, so that to implement accessing UE in a weak coverage scenario, thereby ensuring cell coverage performance.