Embodiments of this application provide a communication method, apparatus, and system. The method includes a network management entity determines a dual connectivity attribute of a first neighbor cell of a first cell, where the dual connectivity attribute is used to indicate whether the first neighbor cell can be used as a secondary cell of the first cell, the first cell belongs to a first base station, and the first neighbor cell belongs to a second base station; and the network management entity sends configuration information to the first base station, where the configuration information indicates the first base station to configure the dual connectivity attribute of the first neighbor cell.