This application relates to the field of communication technologies, and discloses a communication method and apparatus. The method includes: After determining that a first cell is a serving cell of a terminal device, an access network device may send N sets of data transmission mode information to the terminal device in the first cell, where N is a positive integer. The N sets of data transmission mode information include first data transmission mode information corresponding to a handover of the terminal device from a second cell to the first cell and/or second data transmission mode information corresponding to a handover of the terminal device from the second cell to a third cell, where the first cell, the second cell, and the third cell are cells managed by the access network device.