I read an article online that said you can improve the speed of your ADSL by isolating the bell wire in your BT wall socket. The article said it acts like a long antenna and interferes with your line, while it is connected.

I was at work, and I cannot remember the name of the site for the life of me, so no link I'm afraid.

I was just wondering if this is just another myth or if there is any truth to it.

Regards

Spreadie

AFAIK it's true, it's a redundant part of the main telephone socket in your house.

The bell wire as far as I know is a complete loop so can add inteference. You can buy a clip over socket for about a tenner or if you're feeling brave disconnect it. I did. You have a wait a while for any increase to be seen though as your line reliability (cant remember the proper name) is assessed and speed changed accordingly - BT do this automatically.

It's completely true, but how much difference it makes depends on many things.

Your phone line coming in is a single twisted pair, much like cat5 - actually I think it's cat3. Twisted pairs are balanced, so any interference picked up by one conducter is balanced by that on the other. The bell wire is a single wire which completely unbalances the cable and picks up all kinds of interference.

It exists because of the way old phones and extensions work. If you had 2 old phones in parallel, then rotary dialling on one would make the other's bell tinkle. By splitting off the ring circuit with a capacitor at the master socket, that's eliminated. If you cut the bell wire, then you may find some extensions do not wring if they're wired with extension sockets which don't have the capacitor. If that's the case, then simply replace the extension sockets with masters and connect only the middle two wires - usually blue/white.

I spoke to a BT engineer about this very thing recently and he told me that it wouldn't make any noticable difference... he did give some technical reasons, (which I can't remember at the moment) but I came away convinced that it wasn't worth doing.

i have the bell wire disconnected and an iPlate fitted and it has improved my connection …

No offence (and I'm fairly convinced JJ will agree with me), but BT engineers vary enormously in quality of both their work and their advice.

Just found this in a document called 'Broadband Max - Myths and Legends', from BT Wholesale.

I agree, and I stand by my earlier comment.

It's a fact which is easily explained, and many people will attest to it's effectiveness.

However - how much you benefit depends entirely on your precise wiring environment. If you have no extensions in the house, then it won't make any difference. If you do have extensions, but live in a surprisingly low-emf environment then it will only make a small difference to the line attenuation. If you have a large house with several extensions and old wiring right next door to a taxi company and you have a baby monitor and a Sky box, then it'll make a huge difference.

Ideally you should do exactly what Steve did. Basically, split off the ADSL signal at the front door and isolate it from the rest of the house. That will give the optimum performance. He said it worked for him, and there's every reason to believe him.