http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2010/06/09 ... customers/

FYI...

Am I right in thinking this might (in theory) speed up an O2 connection, since it's coming down a BT line?

Not that the connection is in any way slow, just wondering

Isn't this the device that just stops the bell wire in extensions?

If you plug your modem straight into the main socket (like we do, with a splitter for the phone), I'm pretty sure it won't make any difference.

EDIT - Yes, that's the one.

That wasn't an option for me until recently, and even then we'll have to see how things go in our living room...

We already have one fitted, an engineer changed the socket after I reported connection problems.

It's tidier than having a filter hanging from the wall, and I'm getting between 5 & 7 Megs on speedtests on an upto 8meg line.

I should be getting 20megs in a couple of weeks though.

Sod's law says that when we move in October, we'll be stuck with 2megs max, despite only being a half mile away.

I am pretty damn sure that it will make a difference if you have telephone extensions running from your main socket. I actually have three extensions running from my main BT socket and although broadband was working fine from the moment that we had it, we ran into some trouble a couple of years back.

The speed was dropping down to as low as 250kb or so (supposedly 1Mb service) and was frequently dropping off altogether. The issue was addressed eventually as the modem/router still did not provide a reliable service plugged straight into the main BT socket, but although the service was supposed to have been upgraded to 2Mb, I was only getting about 480kb with the telephone extensions connected.

I fitted a modified version of the plate which now filters two of the telephone extensions and does not filter the third which only provides broadband to our study and has never been used with a telephone.

As soon as it was fitted, the speed leapt to (almost) 2Mb and the service has since proved almost 100% reliable.

In addition, our downstairs hard-wired telephone was not working properly, but since I have fitted the plate, it is fine. Could be coincidence/previous dodgy connection, but the base station for our cordless phone was also plugged into the same socket.

Im not with BT, saw an Openreach van parked outside my house, went out and knocked on the drivers window and asked the guy if I could have one. After 15 seconds of him telling me how much they cost, he jumped out the van, opened up the back and gave me a couple. Result.

Yeah, it almost definitely will have an effect.

Got one at home they sent through to me but I've never fitted it....

If you've got a modern Openreach master socket the iPlate will have zero effect as the technology is already built into the socket (if you master socket has an openreach logo on it then it has iPlate inside). If your master socket has an actual BT logo of some sort then an iPLate will probably have an effect.

As an aside, I wouldn't get too excited about getting an "Up to 20Mb" service. Unless you live very close to your exchange you are unlikely to see much of an improvement in download speed, upload is better though. In some cases your speed may actually drop a little (e.g. I was getting between 6.1 - 6.4 Mb/sec download on ADSL1 and that dropped to 5.9 or there abouts on ADSL2+).