[Commentor] LC-436 on behalf of I18N WG [Working Group decision] After futher discussion with Richard Ishida, we have added more specific recommendations as to why using Unicode is a smart thing to do: "Encoding of the content to a desired character encoding is dependent on the authoring tools being used, Web server configuration and the server side scripting technology being used (if any). For a discussion of this see [CHARSET1] and [CHARSET2]. Unicode is a good choice for representing content when served in multiple languages. The amount of bandwidth required to transmit content can vary significantly depending on the character encoding used. Text consisting principally of characters from the Latin alphabet will encode more efficiently in UTF-8, whereas text consisting principally of characters from ideographic scripts will encode more efficiently in UTF-16. When choosing a character encoding, consider the efficiency of the available encodings. Since the Default Delivery Context specifies use only of UTF-8, all applications should support UTF-8. " [Commentor reply] yes [Comment] 
Comment from the i18n review of: link Comment 21 At link Editorial/substantive: S Owner: RI Location in reviewed document: General Comment: We believe the document should encourage all participants in the mobile value chain to support Unicode. This is extremely helpful in ensuring international use of this technology and ease of localization of content.