Communication method and apparatus

A communications apparatus, comprising:

• a receiver;
• a transmitter;
• at least one processor coupled with the transmitter and the receiver;
• and
• one or more memories coupled to the at least one processor and storing programming instructions for execution by the at least one processor to cause the apparatus to:
• receive, through the receiver, a first packet from a first device;
• determine a user plane local area network (LAN) identifier corresponding to the first packet, wherein the user plane LAN identifier is a user plane identifier of a LAN group, wherein the determine the user plane LAN identifier comprises:
• determine flow characteristic information of the first packet, wherein the flow characteristic information comprises at least one of a session identifier, a quality of service flow identifier (QFI), or a tunnel endpoint identifier (TEID);
• and
• determine, according to a LAN identification rule, the user plane LAN identifier corresponding to the first packet, wherein the LAN identification rule comprises a correspondence between the flow characteristic information and the user plane LAN identifier;
• and
• send, through the transmitter, the first packet to a second device based on the user plane LAN identifier and a destination address in the first packet.

A communications apparatus, comprising:

• a transmitter;
• at least one processor coupled with the transmitter;
• and
• one or more memories coupled to the at least one processor and storing programming instructions for execution by the at least one processor to cause the apparatus to:
• determine that a type of a service requested by a terminal is a local area network (LAN) service;
• obtain LAN service information corresponding to the terminal, wherein the LAN service information comprises an identifier of a LAN group corresponding to the terminal, wherein the obtain the LAN service information corresponding to the terminal comprises:
• receive, through a receiver, an uplink packet from a user plane network element;
• and
• obtain the LAN service information corresponding to the uplink packet;
• allocate a user plane LAN identifier to the terminal based on the LAN service information;
• determine flow characteristic information of the terminal, wherein the flow characteristic information comprises at least one of a session identifier, a quality of service flow identifier (QFI), a tunnel endpoint identifier (TEID), or a QFI;
• and
• send, through the transmitter, a LAN identification rule and the user plane LAN identifier to the user plane network element, wherein the LAN identification rule comprises a correspondence between the flow characteristic information and the user plane LAN identifier.