Uk Telephone Lines

[Zooly]

I recently heard about something called an I-Plate which is some kind of filter to improve internet connection, I also heard about cutting the 'ringer/bell wire' which in effect leads to the same performance (according to many sites) gain, my question is: will it be really worth risking it or not?

[fruitbat]

well, after reading up on it myself, i'm going to get one, its only £8.50, and its not going to make it worse...

if you read up on the spiel, it won't be of benefit if

2. Do you have a master telephone socket with a horizontal line across the front? The I-Plate is NOT suitable if:

your socket has a horizontal line, but also an Openreach logo on it - this socket has an I-Plate filter built in.

your socket doesn't have a horizontal line across the front

your socket has two connection points - for telephone and DSL

from here,

http://www.shop.bt.com/products/bt-iplate---bt-broadband-accelerator-58LT.html

however none of that applies to me. its got pretty good user reviews.

thanks for the heads up, lol

[delta7]

I use one and it seemed to help, at the price it was worth the punt

However there are many more variables in the system including your local exchange and especially your ISPs servers.

Any problems I have had were primerily down to virgin.net servers however they seem to have got their act together and are good again

S

[DD_Brando]

I'm glad of the timing of this thread! About a fortnight ago we had a line fault which knocked out the phone but left the Internet intact. I reported it to the robotic fault service using my neighbour's phone - "if you want to speak to a human - tough ****!" - and it was rectified after about ten minutes so I forgot about it. Then, two days later, a real live BT engineer appeared at the door to do some line tests. It turned out that our line was occasionally earthing to a neighbour's line at the exchange and they got that rectified. Cool! But there's an unofficial policy of not leaving the punter without something to see, and it came in the shape of an OpenReach master socket which replaced the 30 year old, round socket that came before. The engineer approved my use of RJ45 shielded cable from there to my router (instead of bell wire) and I got my I-plate for nothing. All in all a timely fault

B

[Crash]

I'm glad of the timing of this thread! About a fortnight ago we had a line fault which knocked out the phone but left the Internet intact. I reported it to the robotic fault service using my neighbour's phone - "if you want to speak to a human - tough ****!" - and it was rectified after about ten minutes so I forgot about it. Then, two days later, a real live BT engineer appeared at the door to do some line tests. It turned out that our line was occasionally earthing to a neighbour's line at the exchange and they got that rectified. Cool! But there's an unofficial policy of not leaving the punter without something to see, and it came in the shape of an OpenReach master socket which replaced the 30 year old, round socket that came before. The engineer approved my use of RJ45 shielded cable from there to my router (instead of bell wire) and I got my I-plate for nothing. All in all a timely fault

B

Just fitted mine and it seems to work BUT when I removed the original cover there were no wires attached to it and there was a loose green wire just laying in the bottom of the mounting. Is it worth getting a BT man to have a look?

[DD_Brando]

I'm glad of the timing of this thread! About a fortnight ago we had a line fault which knocked out the phone but left the Internet intact. I reported it to the robotic fault service using my neighbour's phone - "if you want to speak to a human - tough ****!" - and it was rectified after about ten minutes so I forgot about it. Then, two days later, a real live BT engineer appeared at the door to do some line tests. It turned out that our line was occasionally earthing to a neighbour's line at the exchange and they got that rectified. Cool! But there's an unofficial policy of not leaving the punter without something to see, and it came in the shape of an OpenReach master socket which replaced the 30 year old, round socket that came before. The engineer approved my use of RJ45 shielded cable from there to my router (instead of bell wire) and I got my I-plate for nothing. All in all a timely fault

B

Just fitted mine and it seems to work BUT when I removed the original cover there were no wires attached to it and there was a loose green wire just laying in the bottom of the mounting. Is it worth getting a BT man to have a look?

I wasn't watching while the engineer installed the box

I have the feeling that a connection to anything isn't required - it's just the proximity of the plate to the cable that does the job. It might be an idea to call in the engineer if you can get him in for free.

Ross