Timing advance sending method and apparatus

Abstract

A timing advance sending method and a timing advance sending apparatus that improves the efficiency of a communication network. The efficiency of the communication network is improved by sending relative timing advance to a base station, where the relative timing advance is determined based on a relationship between a distance between the terminal and a non-terrestrial network device and a distance from the network device to an earth reference point. The determined relative timing advance is relatively small in comparison with a propagation delay corresponding to all communication links between the terminal and the base station, so that a number of bits that requires to be occupied is relatively small and thus a number of bits that requires to be occupied by the terminal to report the relative timing advance is relatively small, which helps to save communication resources.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.