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. <EOS>