The Monarch Dubai, 35-story tower will contain 140 guest rooms 43 suites and 58 serviced residences, 5 restaurants, and 16 meeting rooms. Funded by an Abu Dhabi-based consortium of investors, the scheme also encompasses a four-story glass-covered courtyard connecting the towers, which accommodates cafes, restaurants and retail outlets.

For the caliber of development like Capital Towers, it has become mandatory in the Sheikdom of Dubai to protect the buildings with integrated security schemes. As such, the management and project developers of the Capital Tower venture felt it a priority to provide an integrated security system that would not only meet, but surpass the Government and Police guidelines.

With one of the world's most desirable addresses, residential and commercial property housed within the complex, and alongside one of the most luxurious hotels, material investment in the building by its tenants will be extremely high. This investment will be protected by security personnel and a mix of multiple security systems, the cornerstone of which is a USD 800k CCTV system.

To integrate the buildings' security, Capital Towers' management turned to Alpha Data Dubai due to their unique knowledge and experience with high-end, discreet building surveillance systems.

Supplying high-quality camera images back to the control room, Alpha Data installed 180 security cameras that cover Capital Towers' grounds, corridors, lifts, and sumptuous reception areas. To ensure the best possible quality of camera pictures, Alpha Data specified Network Video Technologies (NVT) unshielded twisted pair (UTP) video transmision technology, deciding against a traditional coax based system. Alfred Baltazar of Alpha Data explains: "A traditional, bulky coax installation would have proved problematic. Space in the ducting of the towers is at a premium due to the various other services it is required for, such as general building services and other elements of the security mix. However, this is not an issue for small, lightweight UTP cable networks. Another issue raised was the concern over the level of co-electrical interference that may affect a coax cable based installation running adjacent to the other electrical services."

Alfred continues: "By using NVT's award-winning UTP video transmitters and hub receivers, with their excellent interference rejecting capabilities, both ourselves and Capital Towers' management were able to reap the benefits of crystal clear picture quality." In addition, the correct video waveform demanded by today's DVR equipment, to secure high-quality colour images, is catered for by NVT's active video transmission equipment. NVT's receivers employ a unique feature of 'fully variable' potentiometer adjustment, allowing easy and accurate adjustments to video signal gain over the varying distances of camera cable runs. This provided Alpha Data with a reliable route to successfully integrate the latest DVR systems.

Alfred Baltazar concluded: "We used a dedicated multi-pair UTP cable network which proved much less time consuming than pulling coax bundles. This resulted in a quicker and simpler CCTV installation, delivering a high-performance, future-proofed surveillance solution that was extremely time and cost effective."