Transmission method compatible with higher order modulation and lower order modulation, and apparatus

A transmission method supporting higher order modulation and lower order modulation, the method comprising:

• receiving, by a base station, capability level information from a user equipment, wherein the capability level information is used to indicate that the user equipment supports higher order modulation or supports lower order modulation, wherein the higher order modulation comprises 256 quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), the lower order modulation comprises at least one of 64QAM, 16QAM, and quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK);
• selecting, by the base station according to the capability level information, a modulation mapping table used to communicate with the user equipment from a higher order modulation mapping table and a lower order modulation mapping table, wherein the higher order modulation mapping table and the lower order modulation mapping table are stored in the base station, the higher order modulation mapping table supporting the higher order modulation, the lower order modulation mapping table supporting the lower order modulation;
• determining, by the base station, a modulation and coding scheme index according to the selected modulation mapping table, wherein the modulation and coding scheme index indicates a modulation and coding scheme;
• sending, by the base station, the modulation and coding scheme index to the user equipment;
• receiving, by the base station, channel quality information reported by the user equipment, wherein the channel quality information comprises a channel quality indicator (CQI);
• and
• determining, by the base station, according to the channel quality information, whether to update selection of the higher order modulation mapping table or the lower order modulation mapping table as the modulation mapping table used to communicate with the user equipment.