Sky is offering hotels a new HD service that runs through a unit known as the Sky Bright Box, a version of the ATX MD16.
Sky Select offers a package of 96 satellite channels alongside Freeview and foreign channels.
The MD16 Satellite Gateway is a single-box system designed for deployment at Multiple Dwelling Units (MDUs), hotels and other hospitality venues that significantly lowers the barrier of entry for the delivery of premium video services. Content is then delivered through IP or coax depending on the hotel’s infrastructure.
According to Sky, guests spend on average £5.50 more on room service if Sky is in their room with 69% of guests travelling on business say they’d pay more to stay in a Hotel with Sky in-room.
“The Bright Box is a real game changer for the industry,” says Andy Kydd, head of product, Sky UK. “It gives our hotel partners the ability to reinvigorate the breadth and scale of the premium content they offer guests, all from a technology solution that replaces racks of equipment, freeing up valuable space in crowded communications centres and greatly reducing energy costs, while delivering the same stunning HD visual experience that we make available to our residential subscribers.”
The MD16 decrypts, re-encrypts and rebroadcasts content in Multicast IP or DVB-T, while providing end-to-end content protection from the dish to the TV. It also seamlessly fits into any deployment environment, regardless of whether the hotel is wired for coaxial cable or Ethernet.
“The MD16 is enabling Sky UK to breathe new life into a market sector that has largely been neglected,” said Andrew Isherwood, CTO, Media Distribution, ATX Networks. “Pay-TV providers are now empowered to rev up their commercial businesses to go after a subscriber base that has been underserved for years.”
A further advantage of the MD16 is how several racks of equipment can be replaced with a single unit that can be managed remotely and provides output to every display in the hotel, from state-of-the-art Smart TVs to the expensive-to-replace displays in the hotel’s bathrooms.
