Telecom
Virtual PAs To Account for 20% Smartphones’ User Interactions by 2019- Gartner
Advances in various technologies will drive users to interact with their smartphones in more intuitive ways, said Gartner, Inc. Gartner predicts that, by 2019, 20% of all user interactions with the smartphone will take place via virtual personal assistants (VPAs).
“The role of interactions will intensify through the growing popularity of VPAs among smartphone users and conversations made with smart machines,” said Annette Zimmermann, research director at Gartner.
Gartner’s annual mobile apps survey conducted in the fourth quarter of 2016 among 3,021 consumers across three countries (U.S., U.K. and China) found that 42 percent of respondents in the U.S. and 32 percent in the U.K. used VPAs on their smartphones in the last three months. More than 37 percent of respondents (average across U.S. and U.K.) used a VPA at least one or more times a day.
Apple’s Siri and Google Now are currently the most widely used VPAs on smartphones. Fifty-four percent of U.K. and U.S. respondents used Siri in the last three months. Google Now is used by 41 percent of U.K. respondents and 48 percent of U.S. respondents. “VPAs’ usage is bound to accelerate as they add many new features, including integration for business services, further language support and appear across more devices,” said Jessica Ekholm, research director at Gartner.
Gartner expects that, by 2019, VPAs will have changed the way users interact with devices and become universally accepted as part of everyday life.
Today, VPAs are fulfilling simple tasks such as setting the alarm or retrieving information from the web, but in the near future these systems will be able to deliver more complex tasks such as completing a transaction based on past, present and predicted context.
This trend is also intensified by the acceleration of conversational commerce, but voice is not the only UI for VPA use.
In fact, Facebook Messenger is allowing users to interact with businesses to make purchases, chat with customer services and order Uber cars within the app.
Moreover, Tencent’s WeChat generates over $1.1 billion in revenue by offering its 440 million users an all-in-one approach, letting them pay their bills, hail cabs and order products with a text.
China represents the most mature market by far, where the increased dominance of messaging platforms is causing the traditional app market to stall.
This trend is continuing to grow, not only among consumers but also among businesses or in the prosumer context. For example, Microsoft’s integration of Cortana into Skype will allow users to chat with their VPA.
Cortana will then facilitate the interaction with a third-party bot to get things done, such as a hotel or flight booking.
“We expect AI, machine learning and VPAs to be one of the major strategic battlegrounds from 2017 onwards, and make many mobile apps fade and become subservants of VPAs,” said Ms. Zimmermann.
Voice and Gesture Become Increasingly Important Interfaces
With a predicted installed base of about 7 billion personal devices, 1.3 billion wearables and 5.7 billion other consumer Internet of Things (IoT) endpoints by 2020, the majority of devices will be designed to function with minimal or zero touch.
By 2020, Gartner predicts that zero-touch UIs will be available on 2 billion devices and IoT endpoints. “Interactions will move away from touchscreens and will increasingly make use of voice, ambient technology, biometrics, movement and gestures,” said Ms. Zimmermann. “In this situation, apps using contextual information will become a crucial factor in user acceptance, as a voice-driven system’s usability increases dramatically according to how much it knows about the user’s surrounding environment. This is where device vendors’ assets or partnerships in VPAs, natural language processing (NLP) and deep machine learning experts will matter.”
Gartner clients can read more in the reports: “Predicts 2017: Personal Devices” and “Competitive Landscape: Consumer Messaging App Providers, 2016.” This research is part of the Gartner Special Report “Predicts 2017: Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way: A Gartner Trend Insight Report,” a collection of research that focuses on predictions that allow companies to plan strategically for both expected and unexpected change.
Nigeria has exactly 156,662 active fixed wired internet subscriptions as of mid-2026.
This is a tiny fraction compared to mobile GSM networks, which dominate the market with over 154 million subscribers.
The fixed wired market primarily consists of homes and offices using direct physical cables like fiber optics.
Fixed wired services use physical cables, like glass fiber or copper wire, to bring internet directly into a building.
It is like a dedicated, private water pipe for your home. It provides very fast speeds, unlimited data, and is reliable.
In contrast, mobile GSM uses radio waves transmitted from tall towers to phones, acting more like a sprinkler that sprays a signal across an entire neighborhood.
Because laying physical cables across cities is expensive and hard to do, these subscriptions are very rare.
However, the market has seen recent growth, driven largely by Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) services.
The top players are: MTN FibreX with 110,564 subscribers, which is roughly 88.7 per cent of the entire market.
SWIFTNG accounts for about 13,945 connections.
The others are ipNX and 21st Century Technologies which make up the number.
Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) says it is intensifying efforts to implement Nigeria’s planned 112 national emergency number following its approval by the National Economic Council (NEC).
NCC
The commission disclosed this during a meeting between Vice President Kashim Shettima and an NCC delegation led by the Chairman of its Governing Board, Chief Idris Ibikunle Olorunnimbe, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Briefing the Vice President, Olorunnimbe said the NCC had already established about 35 Emergency Communications Centres (ECCs) across the country to support a unified national emergency response system.
He said the next phase of implementation would focus on closer collaboration with state governments and emergency response agencies to ensure the effective rollout of the initiative.
The development follows the recent approval by the NEC, chaired by the Vice President, for the adoption of 112 as Nigeria’s single national emergency number across all tiers of government and emergency response agencies.
The council also approved the establishment of a multi-agency implementation committee to be jointly coordinated by the Office of the Vice President and the NCC.
Olorunnimbe stressed that the success of the initiative would depend on the commitment of state governments to support and maintain emergency communications infrastructure, as well as the readiness of response agencies to promptly attend to distress calls.
“We need commitment at every level of all response agencies—from top to bottom—including the Nigeria Police Force, ambulance services across the states and, at the national level, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA),” he said.
Responding, Shettima directed the NCC to develop a comprehensive roadmap for the nationwide implementation of the single emergency number in line with international best practices.
He also urged the commission to work closely with the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), citing the agency’s experience in disaster management, relief and rehabilitation.
The Vice President assured the commission of the Federal Government’s commitment to sustaining the initiative, saying funding would be mobilised through the National Economic Council and partnerships with the private sector.
He also called for greater dedication from all emergency response agencies to ensure the success of the programme.
The adoption of 112 is expected to harmonise emergency communications across Nigeria by providing a single number through which citizens can quickly access police, fire, ambulance and other emergency services.
The initiative is also expected to replace multiple emergency contact numbers currently in use and improve coordination and response during emergencies.
Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said that it was strengthening collaboration with state governments and industry players to develop a transparent, cost-based pricing framework for sharing telecom ducts as part of efforts to speed up broadband expansion across Nigeria.
Ayuba Shuaibu, director of Policy, Competition and Economic Analysis, NCC, disclosed this at the Stakeholders’ Forum in Abuja.
Shuaibu said the initiative was designed to build consensus among all parties.
“The primary purpose of this forum is to ensure seamless synergy between the Commission and all stakeholders,” he said.
The director said the consultation was prompted by longstanding complaints over permits, levies and other charges imposed by different levels of government.
He said bringing together state commissioners, telecom operators, tower companies and representatives of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum had helped improve understanding of the issues.
“This engagement is a work in progress. We expect more input from stakeholders before presenting the outcome to the Nigeria Governors’ Forum,” he added.
Dr Helen Adeneye, commissioner for Innovation, Science and Technology, Kogi State. welcomed the consultation, saying Nigeria needs a harmonised policy that clearly defines the responsibilities of both the federal and state governments.
“We need a harmonised policy that allows states to collaborate better with telecom operators and creates a more business-friendly environment,” she said.
Dr Adeneye added that adopting the Dig-Once policy would establish a uniform pricing system and help resolve disputes over charges for telecom infrastructure deployment.
Chidi Ajuzie, chief executive officer, WTES Projects Limited, whose firm is conducting the consultancy study, said the proposed framework would introduce a common cost structure for duct sharing to support broadband investment and economic growth.
“The study is designed to create a uniform pricing model that will drive broadband growth, economic development and wider adoption across the country,” he said.
Ajuzie explained that the consultants had developed preliminary floor and ceiling prices to guide operators while allowing flexibility within the approved range.
He added that the recommendations remain open to industry input before the NCC finalises the framework.
The Dig-Once Policy is designed to reduce the cost and disruption of deploying broadband infrastructure by requiring fibre ducts to be installed whenever roads are constructed or rehabilitated.
The NCC is developing a cost-based pricing framework for sharing these ducts to promote fair pricing, reduce duplication of infrastructure and encourage investment.
The proposed model is expected to support the Federal Government’s broadband expansion targets while improving collaboration between telecom operators and state governments.
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