Mobile Access Interest Group Charter

This charter is written in accordance with section 3.2.2 of the W3C Process.

Table of Contents

• Mission statement
• Scope of the work items
• Criteria for success
• Duration
• Coordination with other Groups
• Deliverables
• Confidentiality
• Coordination with external groups
• Milestones
• Meeting mechanisms
• Communication mechanisms
• Voting mechanisms
• Level of involvement of the Team
• W3C Team contact
• Membership requirements
• Practical information

Mission statement

Mobile Access Interest Group (IG) is an Interest Group as defined by the W3C Process. The purpose of this IG is to provide a forum for W3C Members to discuss issues related to mobile Web access. The goal of this IG is to establish WG(s) for mobile access related specifications, or to describe guidelines within the Interest Group itself.

Originally, this IG was established in June, 1998, following the strong support from membership at the Workshop on Mobile Access, held in April 1998. Initial duration of the IG was one year, until the end of June 1999. At the last IG face-to-face meeting, participants have agreed to continue its work for another year. Hereby the Mobile Access IG is rechartered.

Scope of the work items

1. To discuss and describe requirements for the Web access with mobile terminals (mobile Web clients) such as mobile phones, PDAs, car navigation systems, voice browsers, small information appliances, etc. For example:

   • Mobile module(s) and mobile profile(s) of XHTML
   • Requirements for XML related specifications
   • Style sheets
   • Application Protocol (HTTP based)
   • Proxy and content negotiation
   • Multimedia
   • Interoperability
   • Accessibility
   • Internationalization
   • Position information
   • Applications and specifications suitable for Mobile Access

2. To decide what kind of requirements should be described in detail as guidelines and/or specifications, and what kind of Working Group(s) (WGs) should be established for the description or not.

Criteria for success

1. Describing requirements for XHTML modularization and profiles, Style Sheets, Content Negotiation and/or other standards/recommendations
2. Establishing WG(s) for mobile access related specifications or describing guidelines within the Mobile Access Interest Group

Those requirements should reflect a consensus among hardware manufacturers, software providers, communication service providers and content providers on a solution for Web access that is suited to the Web in general and does not fragment and confuse the promising mobile market.

Duration

The Group will exist for one year, from July 1999 to the end of June 2000. Even after some WG(s) are established the Group can remain as the forum for general discussion about mobile access.

Coordination with other Groups

The Group will have to maintain contacts with many other Groups within W3C. To mention the most important ones:

• HTML WG: Mobile Access IG has to watch carefully the tendency of XHTML and maintain close contact with the HTML WG.
• XML related WGs: XML can be the base format for many mobile access Web applications.
• CSS & FP WG, XSL WG: Style sheets are very important to realize both scalability among mobile terminals as well as interoperability with the Web in general.
• Internationalization (I18N) WG/IG: Mobile Access IG has to take into consideration the requirements for internationalization, because mobile terminals can easily go beyond borders.
• Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI): To make content accessible with mobile input/output (e.g. Audio I/O of phones) is important.
• Synchronized Multimedia (SYMM) WG: The bandwidth of the network is expected to be wide enough for multimedia contents/services in the near future. We need a multimedia description language/format which ensures an evolution path to address future developments in wireless networking, handset technologies and applications.
• Television and the Web IG: The mobile community shares many technical interests and requirements with the television community, such as subsetting HTML, or describing device profiles. Both groups should use the same approaches and technologies.
• Voice Browser WG: Voice browsing is an interesting approach for mobile Web access. Mobile Access IG should look at the work of this WG.
• CC/PP WG (currently under review): This Working Group will develop specifications and guidelines for the components needed to create a structure for context negotiation. Mobile Access IG should look at the work of this WG.
• P3P Specification WG: Discussion is going on to harmonize CC/PP and P3P. Mobile Access IG should look at the work of this WG in this respect.

As this Group is part of the User Interface domain, the actual coordination efforts will mainly be made through the Hypertext Coordination Group. Cooperation with I18N and WAI is also important from the viewpoint of guidelines to other standards/recommendations.

Deliverables

Deliverables are:

1. Mobile access requirements for related standards/recommendations, e.g. CC/PP
2. Report about position information
3. Briefing package(s) of WG(s) for mobile access related specifications, or guidelines for them

Confidentiality

The discussion archives will be open to W3C Members. This charter itself is open to the public.

Coordination with external groups

This Group will maintain contacts with some external groups, such as:

IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force)

IETF is a large open international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet. It is open to any interested individual.

WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) Forum:

WAP Forum is a mobile industry forum that is making specifications and cooperates with W3C.

Milestones

These are initial milestones of this Interest Group. Additional milestones may be added when the group decides to take on additional work items.

December 1999 or January 2000

Hold a workshop on position information, together with the face-to-face meeting

June 2000

Face-to-face meeting

30 June, 2000

Interest Group completion

Meeting mechanisms

Face-to-face meetings are one day or two days sessions held three times during the period of the IG, and venues will be in North America (San Francisco Bay Area), Europe and Asia. But if the Interest Group feels it unnecessary, the 2nd and/or 3rd meeting(s) can be canceled. Teleconferences are scheduled by the Chair as needed.

Communication mechanisms

The participants of the Mobile Access IG communicate via an archived mailing list, w3c-mobile-ig@w3.org.

Voting mechanisms

When voting is necessary, it shall be proceeded as per W3C Process.

Level of involvement of the Team

The W3C Team members will coordinate discussions, and write and edit briefing package(s) of WG(s) when the establishment of the WG(s) comes to an agreement.

W3C Team contact

The Chair and the W3C Team contact of this Group is Tatsuya Hagino, W3C.

Membership requirements

Membership of the IG is open to all employees of W3C member organizations. There are no minimum requirements, neither in terms of expertise, nor in terms of time. If the IG decides to write W3C Notes, the editor(s) will be asked to commit to a certain percentage of their time.

Practical information

The Web page <http://www.w3.org/Mobile/Group/IG/> will contain all essential information, such as this charter, instructions on how to use the mailing list(s), event schedules, links to interesting documents, and a list of IG members.