Peru’s telecommunications regulator, OSIPTEL, has issued a final ruling in the A2P SMS interconnection dispute in which Fravatel sued Viettel Perú (Bitel). The regulator rejected all appeals and nullity petitions filed by the operator and upheld the first-instance judgment, finding that Viettel had abused its dominant market position by blocking third-party A2P SMS traffic. The decision also confirms that A2P SMS is a telecommunications service subject to interconnection obligations, providing important protection for the lawful business interests of A2P aggregators in Peru.
OSIPTEL’s Dispute Resolution Chamber upheld the first-instance findings of November 2025, confirming that Viettel used content-filtering systems to block A2P SMS sent by Fravatel through interconnection routes, including critical notification messages such as OTP verification codes. The conduct was classified as a very serious anti-competitive infringement. The regulator imposed an administrative fine of 2,006 Unidades Impositivas Tributarias (UIT) on Viettel and issued a mandatory corrective order prohibiting the operator from blocking or intercepting SMS traffic sent by Fravatel to Viettel’s mobile network through any agreement, technical operation, or protocol manipulation. Viettel must ensure the normal delivery of A2P messages through lawful interconnection channels. The ruling also clarifies that A2P SMS is not effectively substitutable by OTT internet messaging services such as WhatsApp, as enterprises continue to rely on A2P SMS for delivering important notifications such as OTPs, even when SMS tariffs are higher.
The final decision establishes a key regulatory principle in the Peruvian market: mobile operators that control network resources may not abuse that control by using technical filtering to maliciously obstruct lawfully interconnected A2P traffic. For third-party A2P aggregators such as Fravatel, the ruling provides regulatory and institutional safeguards. Service providers have the legal right to transmit A2P business traffic through standardized interconnection agreements, and operators may not arbitrarily block third-party messages in order to favor their own channels or exclusive partnerships. A2P businesses expanding into Peru may also refer to this precedent to protect their interconnection and interoperability rights.
