The present invention discloses a method and an apparatus for enabling subscriber lines to join a DSL vectoring system the DSL vectoring system and can shorten overall joining time of subscriber lines in a DSL system. The method includes grouping subscriber lines into at least two groups according to time when the subscriber lines request to go online, where the at least two groups of subscriber lines that are obtained after the grouping include a first group of subscriber lines and a second group of subscriber lines; starting a joining process for all the subscriber lines in the first group of subscriber lines; and during the joining process of the first group of subscriber lines, putting all the subscriber lines in the second group of subscriber lines into a joining process.