[the Position Paper for the Workshop on Mobile Access]

                                                               03/11/1998
                      Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (Panasonic)

Relation to the area of Mobile Access:

  Due to the expansion of data communication in the area of mobile
  communication systems, expectations of multimedia mobile applications
  such as WWW access, E-mail and tele-conferencing systems are growing.

  In order to meet the requirements of the already highly advanced market
  for mobile communications equipment such as cellular phones, and to
  lead the mobile communications industry toward new areas of progress,
  both the development and standardization of new technologies can be 
  considered indispensable.

  Panasonic is one mobile communication company - we are currently
  developing a wide variety of mobile equipment and mobile communication
  systems, and are looking forward to the establishment and
  standardization of new technologies.

  Mobile Internet application-layer technologies, including WWW access,
  ITS and EC are going to become widespread. However, to apply
  HTML/XML/HTTP to the mobile area, mobile-oriented technical issues
  such as those listed below have to be solved.

  1) Compact architecture under mobile terminal equipment covering 
     hardware size, lower power consumption, input devices, CPU power
     and memory size
  2) Solutions to wireless communication-oriented issues (low-bit-rate
     transmission speed, robustness, interconnectivity)
  3) Enhancement to realize motion picture communications

  It is important to establish mobile application-layer formats and
  protocols to solve technical issues, and standardize following new
  features:

  a. HTML-based and XML-based standard formats
  b. Device description format for interconnectivity
  c. Audio and video access format and protocol

Presentation:

  2 presentations listed below:
    a. Functional Requirements for Mobile WWW Access
    b. A Proposal for Mobile HTML/XML Architecture