3GPP is currently discussing a trigger feature of a device, and introduces an interworking function (IWF, interworking Function) entity, which is responsible for interworking between an external network and a 3GPP network. FIG. 1 shows a trigger system architecture after the IWF entity is introduced, where the architecture includes the IWF entity, a service capability server (SCS, Services Capability Server), a short message service-service center (SMS-SC, Short Message Service-Service Center), a home subscriber server (HSS, Home Subscriber Server), a mobile switching center (MSC, Mobile Switching Center), a mobility management entity (MME, Mobility Management Entity), a Serving General Packet Radio Service Support Node (SGSN, Serving General packet radio service Support Node), a radio access network (RAN, Radio Access Network), and a user equipment (UE, User Equipment). When the SCS needs to trigger the UE, the SCS delivers a trigger (trigger) request message to the IWF entity; the IWF entity delivers the trigger request message to the SMS-SC after querying subscriber registration information in the HSS; the SMS-SC delivers the trigger request message to a corresponding UE in a manner of sending a short message service message; and the UE establishes, after receiving the trigger request message, a data channel with an external application according to payload included in the trigger request message to perform a corresponding operation.
The trigger manner depends on an SMS message mechanism and is a point-to-point trigger manner, that is, the IWF can trigger only one user equipment (UE, User Equipment) each time. Therefore, when a system needs to trigger a group of UEs, the IWF can respectively send a trigger request message to each UE in the group of UEs only in a point-to-point trigger manner. As a result, a great number of network resources need to be occupied, which causes a waste of network resources.