Anyone tried a BT i-Plate on their incoming broadband connection. They claim it increased people’s broadband speed by 1.5mbs on average.

Yep, for £8 it was a worthwhile investment. Speed increased by nearly 2mbs, and has been more stable since I fitted it.

I’ve been looking into these things. Couple of things seem to pose a problem. My place was only built in the last 2 years so I’d assume the wiring is fairly decent. Secondly, the plate on the wall where my main telephone connection is, also includes connections for the Sky dish and the tv aerial.

Dont bother, just disconnect your bell wire, works even better and instead of filtering it it just removes it entirely.

Bell Wire Removal

Am I right in assuming that the bell wire would only be found in older houses?

Depends who built it, when, with what etc – too many variables, just open up your faceplate and have a gander. I didnt even know it existed until my father (ex BT eng.) removed theirs, first thing I noticed was sync speeds going from 1500 to 2800 abotu a week later (I have my server at their house so look at stuff like that a lot lol).

The i-plate is only really worth getting if you have extensions and don’t want to disconnect the bell wire. (normally orange with white bands and/or white with orange bands)

The bell wire is not needed for modern walkabout phones that plug into the mains, but often older corded phones won’t ring without it (though it’ll still work…just won’t ring)

Even if your extensions are newish, its still worth a try as stuff like sky boxes can introduce interference.

I can confirm that fairly modern (1990+ at least) corded phones will work without the wire too, its an anchient legacy thing, has to be a really old phone not to work.