Ljubljana,
Thursday, April 15, 2021
The NEO platform, which introduced voice control for TV content, now counts more than 100,000 users

​Two and a half years after Telekom Slovenije set a new milestone and was among the first operators in the world to launch a solution that allows TV viewers to navigate their content using voice instead of a traditional remote control - and to do so in their native language, Slovenian - we can confirm that Slovenians are excellent early adopters of new technologies. Recently, Telekom Slovenije has activated its 100,000th user on the NEO platform, as voice navigation is increasingly gaining traction, with changing user habits of Slovenian households. This March users issued 8.6 million voice commands (of which 185.000 were unique), and on average they use 126 voice commands per month.

'Voice navigation is a trend that is gaining traction. We offered our users a fast and simple user interface with shortcuts to channel groups and a recommendation system that we continue upgrading, with personalisation becoming ever more important, especially with the option of using different profiles for family members, a feature quickly adopted among our users. NEO is now increasingly becoming the centre of the household, as it not only makes it possible to navigate TV content, but also provides a simple method for managing smart home devices and the option of playing leading video games, with the user only requiring a gamepad. NEO is constantly developing and adapting to users, and it makes us proud that users recognise it as a platform that brings them the best TV experience,' said Simon Slonjšak, Director of Business Development, B2C at Telekom Slovenije.

The most popular voice search commands in Slovenia
Children were among the first to adopt voice navigation swiftly and casually, as they approach new technologies intuitively and often much sooner than their parents. This is also evident from the statistics of voice search by content, where the top spots are occupied by cartoons. The most frequently searched terms include Paw Patrol, Barbie, Peppa Pig, and Masha and the Bear, which are all available from NEO's Children's Playground section, designed to let parents allow their children to watch only age-appropriate content.

In the two and a half years since launch, a total of 115 million voice commands have been used. Just this March users issued 8.6 million voice commands, an average of 280,000 per day, and nearly 12,000 per hour, 200 per minute; in the afternoon and the evening this number sometimes even exceeds 1000 voice commands per minute.

More than a half of voice commands are related to changing channels (by saying the channel name), and more than a third are actual content searches, for example looking for films, shows, actors, video on demand services, apps, and similar. The rest are so-called technical commands that allow users to record a show, change their profile, raise, or lower the volume, manage their smart home devices, or changing the channel by using its number instead of the name.

In April last year Telekom Slovenije switched to an in-house voice command recognition solution, developed in Slovenia, allowing them to improve the results of recognition of Slovenian voice commands, so that NEO now understands them perfectly. With additional technical solutions voice navigation is constantly improved, and the recently redesigned graphic interface for voice commands and content search provides user a warning when their voice is too loud or not loud enough, alerting them if they need to bring the remote closer to their face or move it away.

NEO also understands a few general voice commands that users love to use: 'I'm bored', 'I'm cold' or 'Ambient sea' and 'Ambient fish'.


NEO gaming gaining popularity
The NEO platform is the result of in-house development and know-how of Telekom Slovenije's experts and is tailored to Slovenian users, allowing constant upgrades. From this February users have been able to use the platform for playing games in the cloud, an emerging trend in gaming. Currently, they can select among 59 advanced games aimed at families, and in the first two months of the service, the most popular genres were sports, racing, action, and some children's games. Users most frequently played WRC 6 FIA World Rally Championship, Aqua Moto Racing Utopia, MotoGP™17, Split/Second: Velocity, Disney•Pixar Cars 2: The Video Game, MXGP - The Official Motocross Videogame, Tennis World Tour: Roland Garros Edition, F1™ 2018, Gravel, Dogfight 1942 and Anarcute. Games can be played using the following game pads Logitech F710, Sony PS4 or XBOX One.

When developing its solution for cloud gaming, Telekom Slovenije struck a partnership with Gamestream, the leading cloud gaming provider, which emphasised that in the future gamers will be buying fewer individual games, and instead turning towards cloud gaming, as this allows them to access a greater abundance and variety of content. 'Network infrastructure will also continue to develop, making gaming anywhere, any time and on any device the new reality. This is another reason why we are so enthusiastic to partner with Telekom Slovenije, as the company has excellent infrastructure and a future-ready high-capacity network. This makes it possible for NEO users to enjoy gaming at the highest quality level, without any latency, a key factor for cloud gaming, and this is possible because Gamestream uses Telekom Slovenije's high-capacity data centres,' emphasised Lionel Adam, the VP for sales and business development at Gamestream.

The biggest and most modern fibre optics network
NEO gaming is available to subscribers with a fibre optics connection, and Telekom Slovenije manages the biggest and most modern fibre optics network in the country, available to more than 387,000 households across Slovenia. The company has been gradually raising basic internet speeds on the fibre optics network, as they now start at 100 Mbps, both downlink and uplink. Subscribers to fixed subscription plans now enjoy a higher average data transfer speed than at the beginning of the year, with more of them migrating to fibre optics technology. Telekom Slovenije has recorded the highest subscriber growth to plans with downlink speeds of 300 Mbps, 350 Mbps and 600 Mbps. Telekom Slovenije has been constantly expanding and upgrading its network with new technologies, as only a cutting-edge infrastructure is able to provide users with the latest telecommunication services. The high-performance network provides high-speed internet access to households and businesses, while giving domestic operators who also utilise its network the chance to provide high-quality connections at locations where they have no infrastructure of their own.

Upcoming NEO features
Besides navigating TV content, NEO also provides a simple way to manage smart home devices and sensors, it can become an additional WiFi hotspot, it can work on TVs, smartphones, tablets and computers, and as the NEO Lite app, also on Android smart TVs; with Samsung's Tizen and LG WebOS smart TVs following soon. Another new feature will be connecting NEO with Bluetooth devices, while NEO Smart Home will also provide users with notifications of key events (when someone enters the room, when an alarm is triggered, etc.).

Also coming soon is a new web interface and a new mobile app that will be even more responsive, introduce a unified structure and content listing across all devices, further simplifying the user experience. Users will be able to access nearly the full range of TV channels from their bundle across all devices, and the list of channels offering time shift, record and continue watching features will also be expanded.

NEO video player will provide a fast and simple overview of the most popular content, such as the big moments of sports competitions. Universal search will also be getting an upgrade, while other features will include recording a full series and notifications on new content, along with some editorial management of the content sections.

Back​ t​o Press Releases

Attachments

  • Original document
  • Permalink

Disclaimer

Telekom Slovenije dd published this content on 14 April 2021 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 16 April 2021 09:03:06 UTC.