A carrier status indication method, comprising: determining, by a base station, a carrier status of a carrier, wherein the carrier status is an activated state or a deactivated state; and indicating, by the base station, first carrier information to user equipment by using a downlink physical control channel, wherein the first carrier information comprises the carrier status of the carrier, and the first carrier information is used to enable the user equipment to perform communication on the carrier according to the carrier status; wherein the indicating, by the base station, first carrier information to user equipment by using a downlink physical control channel comprises: indicating, by the base station, the first carrier information to the user equipment by using downlink control information carried by the downlink physical control channel, wherein the downlink control information is downlink control information that is obtained by scrambling a cyclic redundancy check, CRC, of the downlink physical control channel by using a carrier activation radio network temporary identifier, RNTI, and the carrier activation RNTI is an RNTI that is used to identify the downlink physical control channel carrying the first carrier information and that is configured by the base station for the user equipment, wherein the downlink physical control channel comprises: a physical downlink control channel PDCCH or an enhanced physical downlink control channel E-PDCCH. determining, by a base station, a carrier status of a carrier, wherein the carrier status is an activated state or a deactivated state; and indicating, by the base station, first carrier information to user equipment by using a downlink physical control channel, wherein the first carrier information comprises the carrier status of the carrier, and the first carrier information is used to enable the user equipment to perform communication on the carrier according to the carrier status; wherein the indicating, by the base station, first carrier information to user equipment by using a downlink physical control channel comprises: indicating, by the base station, the first carrier information to the user equipment by using downlink control information carried by the downlink physical control channel, wherein the downlink control information is downlink control information that is obtained by scrambling a cyclic redundancy check, CRC, of the downlink physical control channel by using a carrier activation radio network temporary identifier, RNTI, and the carrier activation RNTI is an RNTI that is used to identify the downlink physical control channel carrying the first carrier information and that is configured by the base station for the user equipment, wherein the downlink physical control channel comprises: a physical downlink control channel PDCCH or an enhanced physical downlink control channel E-PDCCH. indicating, by the base station, the first carrier information to the user equipment by using downlink control information carried by the downlink physical control channel, wherein the downlink control information is downlink control information that is obtained by scrambling a cyclic redundancy check, CRC, of the downlink physical control channel by using a carrier activation radio network temporary identifier, RNTI, and the carrier activation RNTI is an RNTI that is used to identify the downlink physical control channel carrying the first carrier information and that is configured by the base station for the user equipment, wherein the downlink physical control channel comprises: a physical downlink control channel PDCCH or an enhanced physical downlink control channel E-PDCCH.