A communication method, an access network device, and a terminal, the method comprising sending, by a first access network device, in a cell of the first access network device and corresponding to a radio network area of a terminal in a radio resource control (RRC) inactive state, and in response to the terminal in the RRC inactive state needing to be paged, a first paging message paging the terminal and sending, by the first access network device to a second access network device, a paging request message requesting to page the terminal, where the second access network device is an access network device other than the first access network device, and where the second access network device corresponds to the radio network area.