Internationalization of the File Transfer Protocol

The File Transfer Protocol, as defined in RFC 959 [RFC959] and RFC 1123 Section 4 [RFC1123], is one of the oldest and widely used protocols on the Internet. The protocol's primary character set, 7 bit ASCII, has served the protocol well through the early growth years of the Internet. However, as the Internet becomes more global, there is a need to support character sets beyond 7 bit ASCII.