An information sending method, comprising: determining, by a base station, rate matching information, and sending the rate matching information to user equipment, UE, wherein the rate matching information is used to indicate a first time-frequency resource that is in a downlink subframe and that does not need to be detected by the UE when the UE receives second information by using the downlink subframe; and determining, by the base station, the downlink subframe according to the rate matching information, and sending the downlink subframe to the user equipment, where the downlink subframe includes at least two subframes; wherein the first time-frequency resource comprises at least one of a physical resource block, a sub-physical resource block, a physical resource block pair, and a sub-physical resource block pair; wherein a length of a time domain occupied by the sub-physical resource block pair is less than a length of a time domain occupied by one subframe, and the sub-physical resource block pair comprises N1 first subcarriers and M1 first orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, OFDM, symbols, wherein a spacing between two adjacent first subcarriers in a frequency domain is greater than a set value, and both N1 and M1 are positive integers; wherein a length of a time domain occupied by the physical resource block pair is equal to a length of a time domain occupied by one subframe, and the physical resource block pair comprises N2 second subcarriers and M2 second OFDM symbols, wherein a spacing between two adjacent second subcarriers in the frequency domain is equal to the set value, and both N2 and M2 are positive integers; wherein N1 is equal to N2, and M1 is equal to M2. determining, by a base station, rate matching information, and sending the rate matching information to user equipment, UE, wherein the rate matching information is used to indicate a first time-frequency resource that is in a downlink subframe and that does not need to be detected by the UE when the UE receives second information by using the downlink subframe; and determining, by the base station, the downlink subframe according to the rate matching information, and sending the downlink subframe to the user equipment, where the downlink subframe includes at least two subframes; wherein the first time-frequency resource comprises at least one of a physical resource block, a sub-physical resource block, a physical resource block pair, and a sub-physical resource block pair; wherein a length of a time domain occupied by the sub-physical resource block pair is less than a length of a time domain occupied by one subframe, and the sub-physical resource block pair comprises N1 first subcarriers and M1 first orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, OFDM, symbols, wherein a spacing between two adjacent first subcarriers in a frequency domain is greater than a set value, and both N1 and M1 are positive integers; wherein a length of a time domain occupied by the physical resource block pair is equal to a length of a time domain occupied by one subframe, and the physical resource block pair comprises N2 second subcarriers and M2 second OFDM symbols, wherein a spacing between two adjacent second subcarriers in the frequency domain is equal to the set value, and both N2 and M2 are positive integers; wherein N1 is equal to N2, and M1 is equal to M2.