L2/00-018

ISO

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR STANDARDIZATION

ORGANISATION INTERNATIONALE DE NORMALISATION

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ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2

Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set  (UCS)

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                                                                                                                                     ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 N 2157

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Date:  1999-11-09

 

TITLE:                                    ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2 information to ETSI/SMG4 on character coding

SOURCE:                   Karl Ivar Larsson, on behalf of SC2/WG2 & WG3

DISTRIBUTION:            ETSI/SMG4 & SC2/WG2

 

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2 information to ETSI/SMG4 on character coding

 

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2 working groups WG 2 (Multiple-octet codes) and WG 3 (7- and 8-bit codes) held their latest meetings September 13th-17th.  In the meetings a document was entered by Mr K I Larsson regarding the discussions on GSM SMS character coding, September 7th, in the ETSI/SMG4 (3GPP TSG-T) Helsinki meeting; as described in the report from that meeting.

    

The WG 2 and WG 3 meetings encouraged the proposed ETSI SMG4 action of harmonizing character definitions in GSM SMS with WG 2 and WG 3 standards, in particular ISO/IEC 10646. The working groups also found continued exchange of information between JTC 1/SC 2 and ETSI/SMG4 clearly advantageous; and adopted resolutions inviting K I Larsson to prepare, in consultation with the group convenors, an appropriate response to the ETSI transmission.

    

The charter of the technical working groups is to publish encoding standards that are flexible in architecture, easy to implement on a variety of platforms and contain a repertoire that meets market needs worldwide.  ISO/IEC 10646 is the base universal character set standard for the Internet and programming languages that is being implemented on a variety of operating systems platforms by leading communication and information technology companies and organizations.

 

One specific organization that can provide guidance and help in implementation of ISO/IEC 10646 is the Unicode Consortium (the repertoires and codings of ISO/IEC 10646 and the Unicode Standard are identical).  WG 2 and WG 3 therefore encourage ETSI/SMG4 to establish a working relationship with the Unicode Consortium to acquire guidance and help on specific implementa­tion strategies.