Latin America

Peru sets mobile-service safeguards for El Niño emergency areas

OSIPTEL pauses prepaid expirations and provides for temporary postpaid-to-prepaid migration. The rules apply only where an El Niño 2026-2027 emergency has been declared.

Peru's regulator OSIPTEL established temporary measures to maintain mobile access in areas declared to be in an emergency linked to El Niño 2026-2027. Its October 19 statement says the rules do not apply nationwide or beyond the period of each emergency declaration. RPP and Diario Viral also covered Resolution 133-2026-CD/OSIPTEL. [1][2][3]

For prepaid accounts, balances and promotions will stop expiring, and operators must not suspend or cancel lines for lack of top-ups or use while the measures apply. If this protection is technically impossible, they may offer free text messages. For postpaid users, the regulator provides for temporary migration to prepaid before cutting off a line for nonpayment, where feasible and without a migration charge; earlier debts remain due. [1]

The rules provide for operators to facilitate access to temporary prepaid lines for affected people and may set up mobile points for SIM replacement and enable data sharing under their technical conditions. These are continuity measures for an emergency, not evidence that every covered area has already suffered an outage. The archive photo shows a phone's SIM tray in 2014, outside Peru. [1][2]

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