SMG4/TSG-CN3/TSG-T2
London, 15-19 March 1999	TSGT2#2(99)213

Agenda Item:	Mexe (SWG1)

Source:	NTT DoCoMo

Title:	Report of Character Encoding and general concerns

Document for:	Discussion

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1.	Introduction
I would like to report the status concerning characteristic encoding in WAP and also point our concerns.

2.	WAP
WAP1.0 is based on the usage of only UNICODE 2.0[ISO10646] for character encoding, so there  are definitions for multibyte-codes in WSP, WML, and WMLscript but some of them are ambiguous from the implementation view point. In the current proposed WAP specifications, these issues has been clarified for internationalisation. After approval within WAP Forum, they will be released as WAP 1.1.

The followings are the main changed points from WAP1.0.
1)	WML
Clarify to indicate character encoding for I18N by META-Declaration in HTTP-Equive and XML declaration
2)	WML Script
Add an entity for HTTP-EQUIV meta-information to indicate the type of WML script binary format

3.	UNICODE issue
-	Some Chinese characteristics in UNICODE can not be distinguished among China, Korea, and Japan. They are very similar to look at, but have another meanings in each country.

4.	General Concerns
The followings are important if we consider the continuation and its interoperability of our services.

-	How we should handle the updated WAP and Java version?
-	For which version of WAP specification will its conformance test be delivered by WAP Forum?
-	Furthermore if there will not be guaranteed its interoperability by WAP 1.0, is it possible for us to adapt WAP1.1 instead of 1.0 in Mexe?

5.	Conclusion
We don’t have any strong opinion or requirements for the release of GSM 03.57. But from the view point of internationalisation and interoperability, WAP1.1 or later versions should be adapted to 3GPP Mexe.