The Supervisory Agency for Private Investment in Telecommunications (Organismo Supervisor de Inversión Privada en Telecomunicaciones, OSIPTEL) is Peru’s independent economic regulator for the telecommunications sector. It was established in 1994, following structural reforms in Peru to liberalise the telecommunications sector, and oversees sector activities and the development of new services and technologies.
Following an in-depth review of its governance and performance by the OECD in 2018, OSIPTEL invited the OECD to review progress made in implementing recommendations that were put forward.
This review finds that OSIPTEL has made significant progress in a number of areas. These include i) improving the fee-setting process by successfully advocating to the executive for an increase in the regulatory fee and introducing three-yearly revision, ii) resolving the large backlog of consumer complaints, iii) implementing a regulatory impact assessment (RIA) framework, and iv) reinstating a users’ council that acts as an important outreach mechanism.
At the same time, the implementation of other recommendations requires additional efforts from the regulator, while some have proven more difficult to implement due to the challenging political and institutional context. Political instability and high turnover at senior levels of the executive branch hindered more structural co-ordination with public actors. The review identifies some areas of focus that can help OSIPTEL ensure continuous progress and build on its achievements. This includes clarifying its role and mandate, promoting diversity in its decision making, and increasing the use of early-stage stakeholder consultation and risk-based inspection and enforcement approaches.
