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South Asian telecommunications regulators meeting for a regional conference in New Delhi, India will today discuss lowering roaming tariffs, officials said.

Tariffs on calls made between the member countries of the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation are much higher than calls made to distant countries like the UK and USA.

Telecom experts have also been calling for lowering regional roaming rates as a way of promoting greater co-operation and connectivity among members of the SAARC regional grouping.

The meeting in India hosted by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is of officials of the South Asian Telecommunications Regulators' Council.

It is responsible for discussing and coordinating issues relating to regulations in the telecommunication sector of common interest to regional telecom regulators.

Member countries of the council are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

The member countries are trying to create a telecom regime somewhat similar to that of European Union (EU) member countries.

The EU policy has paved the way for cheaper tariff rates on calls made between its European member countries.

The SAARC leaders' summit held in Colombo in September also saw calls for lower roaming tariffs as a way of bringing people closer together.

Other issues being discussed in the New Delhi meeting are spectrum allocation and pricing, voice over internet protocol (VoIP), next generation networks (NGN), tariffs in internet protocol-based services, and rural connectivity.

The regulators will also consider methods of more directly interconnecting their national networks.

At present, traffic between some of the SAARC countries are routed through West Asian countries as some telecommunications companies do not have direct connectivity links with each other.

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