On August 28, 2026, Colombia’s Communications Regulation Commission (CRC) launched a public consultation on new rules for enterprise A2P SMS. A2P traffic currently accounts for 98.6% of the country’s total SMS traffic, with volume soaring by 739% between 2017 and 2025, while person-to-person (P2P) SMS now represents only 1.4%. SMS phishing and impersonation scams involving the falsification of banks and public institutions have become a prominent issue.
The proposal designates enterprise A2P SMS as a separate market segment, abandoning the previous one-size-fits-all uniform price cap model in favor of freely negotiated enterprise prices within a regulated range of upper and lower limits. A temporary wholesale unit price will be set during the transition period, and the first official price cap will be published in March 2027 and updated quarterly. Additional capacity charges will also apply to unexpected traffic surges, with the same pricing framework covering national automatic roaming for A2P messages. Operators will also be required to separately report A2P traffic and revenue data.
For security and risk control, the rules require Sender ID verification, the establishment of a centralized validation system, and review of enterprise entities, brands, and message templates to enable end-to-end message traceability. The use of standard 10-digit E.164 numbers to disguise A2P traffic as P2P traffic and evade A2P regulation will be expressly prohibited.
Implementation of the above security mechanisms depends on the entry into force of the new A2P pricing rules. A third-party centralized validation entity will then be selected and given a 12-month transition period to complete system modifications. The public consultation closes on September 11, 2026. No additional charges will be imposed on ordinary end users, as the regulation applies only to wholesale settlements between operators and aggregators.
