Recent standardisation efforts in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) have yielded the possibility of using internationalised identifiers in several applications, most notably Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs) and internationalised e-mail.
In IEEE 802.1X, EAPoL, EAP and RADIUS, the internationalisation problem is not satisfactorily solved yet. Further information on the problem can be found at http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/73/slides/dime-4/dime-4.htm and http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/73/minutes/dime.txt.
Identity providers that consider using internationalised names for their institution’s domain and e-mail might be tempted to use that same internationalised domain name as the eduroam realm for the outer identity.
As of yet, usage of eduroam realms with non-ASCII characters is NOT RECOMMENDED. Using internationalised realms may lead to unexpected results, including the inability to roam in a national or international context.
The internationalisation problem is being worked upon in the IETF, and we will inform eduroam participants when it is safe to define and use internationalised domain names in eduroam.
