Embodiments of the present invention provide a thin terminal communication method and apparatus, relating to the communications field. The thin terminal is capable of directly communicating with a
user equipment, and encoding and decoding a phonetic media
stream in a communication process, which improves user experience, and avoids the problems of a great phonetic
delay and the poor phonetic quality in the prior art. The method comprises: sending, by the thin terminal, a first call request message via a protocol IP telephone gateway interconnected between networks to the
user equipment; receiving, by the thin terminal, a first response message corresponding to the first call request message and from the
user equipment via the IP telephone gateway; communicating, by the thin terminal, with the user equipment according to the first response message, sending, by the thin terminal, a first phonetic media
stream to the user equipment after first
utterance information from the user in the communication process is encoded into a first phonetic media
stream, or outputting, by the thin terminal, to the user after a second phonetic media stream from the user equipment in the communication process is decoded into second
utterance information.