SMATV & IP TV

SMATV (Satellite Master Antenna Television) and IPTV are the systems that quietly deliver hundreds of channels to every room in a residential tower, hotel or hospital — over a single set of cables, with centralised control and a guest-friendly interface. Get them right and they disappear into the building. Get them wrong and every TV in the property becomes a help-desk ticket.

Araneae Networks designs and installs complete head-end systems and distribution networks. A typical project starts with channel sourcing: which satellites do you need (Arabsat, Nilesat, Eutelsat Hot Bird), what terrestrial channels matter (UAE DTT, Dubai Sports), what OTT or in-house content do you want to add, and what languages does your audience need (Arabic, English, Urdu, Hindi, Tagalog, etc.).

The head-end combines satellite dishes (typically multi-LNB with quad/octo outputs), terrestrial antenna for DTT, IRDs (integrated receiver-decoders) for premium channels, transcoders to normalise content to your distribution format, and a multiplexer that bundles everything into a single distribution stream. For hotels and serviced apartments we add an in-house channel server for welcome screens, room-service menus and emergency announcements.

Distribution is your choice between traditional SMATV (RF over coax) and modern IPTV (over Cat6 / fibre). Coax-based SMATV is cheaper for retrofits where coax is already in place; IPTV is the future-proof choice for new buildings — it shares the data cabling, supports interactive features and integrates cleanly with hotel property management systems.

For hospitality projects we deliver a branded guest interface: welcome screen with personalised greeting, hotel logo, in-room services menu, weather, currency converter, language selection, and integration with the PMS (Opera, Cloudbeds, Hotelogix) so the system knows checkout time, name and language preference for each guest.

All installations are licensed and compliant. We coordinate with UAE broadcasting authorities, handle BeIN and OSN content licensing, manage smart-card distribution, and deliver content management dashboards so your operations team can adjust the channel line-up without calling us back.