A communication method, comprising: in response to receiving a measurement report from a terminal, sending, by a first network device, a second message to a second network device, wherein the second message comprises indication information of a determined candidate target second cell belonging to the second network device and an indication indicating that the second message is for a conditional handover; receiving, by the first network device, a response message for the second message, wherein the response message for the second message comprises indication information of a cell that is of the second cell and that the terminal is allowed to access; sending, by the first network device, a first message to the terminal, wherein the first message comprises first cell indication information and first configuration information, wherein the first cell indication information is used to indicate at least one candidate target cell, the first configuration information is used to trigger the conditional handover, the at least one candidate target cell is determined by the first network device based on the indication information of the cell that is of the second cell and that the terminal is allowed to access, the conditional handover is a kind of handover where the terminal determines a cell that is of the at least one candidate target cell and that meets the one or more conditions as a to-be-handed-over-to cell, and the first network device is a network device to which a serving cell currently accessed by the terminal belongs; in a case that the conditional handover is not needed, sending, by the first network device, third indication information to the terminal, wherein the third indication information is used to indicate the terminal to cancel the conditional handover and the third indication is in a message different from the first message; and in a case that the second network device has received, from the terminal, a handover complete message during the conditional handover procedure, receiving, by the first network device, a message to request sequence number status transfer message from the second network device, the first network device stopping allocating a packet data convergence protocol, PDCP, sequence number to the data packet of the terminal, and sending by the first network device, the sequence number status transfer message to the second network device. in response to receiving a measurement report from a terminal, sending, by a first network device, a second message to a second network device, wherein the second message comprises indication information of a determined candidate target second cell belonging to the second network device and an indication indicating that the second message is for a conditional handover; receiving, by the first network device, a response message for the second message, wherein the response message for the second message comprises indication information of a cell that is of the second cell and that the terminal is allowed to access; sending, by the first network device, a first message to the terminal, wherein the first message comprises first cell indication information and first configuration information, wherein the first cell indication information is used to indicate at least one candidate target cell, the first configuration information is used to trigger the conditional handover, the at least one candidate target cell is determined by the first network device based on the indication information of the cell that is of the second cell and that the terminal is allowed to access, the conditional handover is a kind of handover where the terminal determines a cell that is of the at least one candidate target cell and that meets the one or more conditions as a to-be-handed-over-to cell, and the first network device is a network device to which a serving cell currently accessed by the terminal belongs; in a case that the conditional handover is not needed, sending, by the first network device, third indication information to the terminal, wherein the third indication information is used to indicate the terminal to cancel the conditional handover and the third indication is in a message different from the first message; and in a case that the second network device has received, from the terminal, a handover complete message during the conditional handover procedure, receiving, by the first network device, a message to request sequence number status transfer message from the second network device, the first network device stopping allocating a packet data convergence protocol, PDCP, sequence number to the data packet of the terminal, and sending by the first network device, the sequence number status transfer message to the second network device.