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LATAM channels onboarding: WhatsApp, SMS, and voice

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Pick the right channel per country

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1. Sender readiness — WhatsApp WABA

1. Complete the WABA setup guide. Your WABA number must be a number you control (not a shared pool number) and your business must be verified in Meta Business Suite.
2. For Brazil: verify display name quality. WhatsApp rate-limits sends when display-name quality is low. Keep display names in the local language and avoid superlative-heavy names that trip Meta’s moderation.
3. For Mexico: the same WABA setup applies. Mexican inbound WhatsApp numbers route to the same tenant webhook URL.
4. RCS in Brazil: confirm your RCS agent is verified before you lean on it as fallback. RCS agent verification is per-country.

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2. Sender readiness — SMS sender id and short code

• Brazil — short codes dominate A2P SMS. Short-code registration leads time is 4–8 weeks on the three dominant carriers (Claro, Vivo, TIM). Long numbers and unmanaged sender ids are heavily filtered. Budget lead time accordingly.
• Mexico — most carriers accept alphanumeric sender ids, but they must be pre-registered with the operator. Unregistered alphanumeric senders are stripped to a gateway-long-number at the carrier edge.
• Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Peru — alphanumeric sender ids burn through on some carriers and get stripped on others. Test with a single low-volume send first, then verify final sender delivery via the delivery-status webhook before bulk.

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3. Sample send flows per channel

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WhatsApp template send (Brazil and Mexico default)

curl -X POST https://api.orbit.devotel.io/api/v1/messages/whatsapp \
  -H "X-API-Key: dv_live_sk_..." \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "to": "+5511987654321",
    "type": "template",
    "template": {
      "name": "order_shipped",
      "language": { "code": "pt_BR" },
      "components": [
        {
          "type": "body",
          "parameters": [
            { "type": "text", "text": "PED-10293" }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  }'

import { Devotel } from '@devotel-orbit/node';

const orbit = new Devotel({ apiKey: process.env.ORBIT_API_KEY });

const message = await orbit.messages.send({
  channel: 'whatsapp',
  to: '+5511987654321',
  type: 'template',
  template: {
    name: 'order_shipped',
    language: { code: 'pt_BR' },
    components: [
      { type: 'body', parameters: [{ type: 'text', text: 'PED-10293' }] },
    ],
  },
});

console.log(message.data.id);      // msg_a1b2…
console.log(message.data.status);  // 'queued'

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SMS send (no template)

curl -X POST https://api.orbit.devotel.io/api/v1/messages/sms \
  -H "X-API-Key: dv_live_sk_..." \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "to": "+5491122345678",
    "from": "ACME",
    "body": "Tu pedido ya salio. Seguilo en acme.example/p/PED-10293"
  }'

import { Devotel } from '@devotel-orbit/node';

const orbit = new Devotel({ apiKey: process.env.ORBIT_API_KEY });

const message = await orbit.messages.send({
  channel: 'sms',
  to: '+5491122345678',
  from: 'ACME',
  body: 'Tu pedido ya salio.',
});

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RCS in Brazil (optional channel)

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4. Carrier errors you will actually see

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5. Compliance posture per country

• Brazil (LGPD) — data-protection law. Suppression lists, the right to be forgotten, and consent records fall to you. Orbit supplies the controls; see consent management and suppression list export.
• Mexico (LFPDPPP) — opt-out must be honoured on every sender. Configure your opt-out handling in opt-out lists before any bulk send.
• Argentina, Colombia (Ley 1581), Chile — general data-protection laws apply. Map which lawful basis (consent, legitimate interest, contract) applies per use case before you enable the channel.
• Country requirements reference — the country-requirements page is the per-country map of what Orbit knows you need to configure; check it per market.
• Quiet hours / campaign limits — see quiet-hours configuration and campaign limits and quiet hours for the tenant-configurable throttles Orbit ships.

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6. Time-to-live expectations per channel

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Where to go next

• Connect your first channel — the cross-channel connect flow.
• Send and receive messages — the cross-channel send pattern.
• Fallback chains — WhatsApp → SMS → voice failover.
• APAC channels onboarding — the parallel guide for LINE/WeChat/Kakao/Zalo.
• Best practices — platform-wide sending hygiene.
• WhatsApp channel page · SMS channel page · RCS channel page — per-channel API references.