Probably a noddy Q but.....

[Rossian]

.....I'll give you the abbreviated story.

My BB is CRAP. We are about 3 miles from the exchange with a mix of over/underground wires.

Average download speeds are around 0.45Mbs, so watching video clips is painful and iPlayer is out of the question.

My neighbour was sent an Openreach engineer yesterday by his ISP - BT. I joined the discussion as the chap tried to fettle the system. He wouldn't say anything to me as my ISP is TalkTalk.

Over many years, ISP says it's BT's fault, BT says talk to your ISP - me and my neighbours are piggies in the middle and neither party does anything.

I remembered the earlier discussions here about the BT iplate and looked them up. So I took off the lower half of the master box where the router is plugged in and replugged the router into the test socket. Instantly and for the rest of the evening and into the early hours it sat steadily at 2.6/up to about 2.9 and even this AM as the world was having its breakfast it was the same. It was even across speedtest.net and thinkbroadband.com.

The catch is of course the phones didn't work. Put the faceplate back and the speeds drop but the phone works so SWMBO is happy.

I realise that this is very simple to lots of peeps in here but for the rest of us - in words of one syllable........

Will fitting an iPlate have the same effect as plugging directly into the test socket?

The Ancient Mariner

[boguing]

Having had no less than fifteen visits from BT Openreach in the last ten months, I've heard so much conflicting b*llocks that I don't believe a word they tell me anymore.

After my problems started (slow bband, noisy 'phone and 'phone cutting out completely) I ran my router through a microfilter into the master socket for months up until it got changed for the iplate. I ran the 'phone to the same filter. There wasn't really any difference between master and normal socket, but did as I was told.

By the sound of it you have a fault in the rest of your 'phone wiring, which is eliminated when you disconnect it from the master. That fault could be miswiring, but also any strong interference near the wires to other 'phones. As an example, one engineer told me about an xbox near an extension socket that was causing all sorts of problems with the bband. The xbox was 'noisy' but still working.

I'd suggest unplugging everything else, then try the router speed connected to the face plate. If that's OK you can plug 'phones back in one by one, testing bband speed each time. If it's not OK, then the extension wiring may be damaged or collecting interference.

Mine still isn't fixed, btw!

[henry_crun]

One solution is to get 3G (or 4G if available in your area). You just need a wingle plugged into a mains usb adaptor. Cost of unlocked wingle is 25 quid from a well-known supermarket dot com. Data cost depends which sim you buy. My payg is 3 gigs of data for twenty quid. Inexpensive for most browsing but pricy if you watch a lot of tube. Alternatively you can go the contract route. Usually quite fast but slow around 6pm and at weekends when folks burn bandwidth with inefficient voice calls.

[bnt]

Short version: broadband itself does not need filters and works best without them. The filter is there for the phone, since you don't want broadband noises on the line when you're trying to speak on the phone. So I can see how running the broadband directly in to the test socket is better, and any socket you use for the broadband should be unfiltered.

Dunno what an "iPlate" is, but if it's a dual wall socket like this, then there's a filter on the phone side only:

http://images.maplinmedia.co.uk/telephone-and-adsl-broadband-wall-plate.jpg?w=283&h=283&r=4&o=k7P$qRdOU1bScVts$UXtP6@XMbMj&V=0rJA

[EGTE]

Fitting an i-plate will probably not improve your BB speed in this instance but you could always try it. By the way, modern BT main sockets with the Openreach logo on them have the i-plate technology fitted in them anyway. Those older sockets with the BT logo on them do not.

If your BB speed is better when you are plugged directly into the test socket than into the front of the socket's face plate the indication is that your extension wiring is the likely cause of the problem.

Your ISP is responsible only for broadband speed up to the test socket. You would need to get an electrician to check out any extension wiring/extension sockets you might have.

[Rossian]

....who took the time to think about this. There is only one extension in use for the base station for two cordless handsets in another room. There are other extension sockets throughout the house but there are no phones plugged in to them.

I'm going away on Wednesday for a week's hols in the sun, so I'll maybe give it some deep pondering in the sunshine and start again on return. Ho Hum.

The Ancient Mariner

[The Flying Pram]

Try disconnecting the bell wire (terminal 3) from the front plate. It's no longer needed, as the bell circuit for each phone is now provided by the relevant plug in filter. AFAIK this is what the "i=plate does". Only 2&5 are required to convey the line. However, this will be a problem if you have an old (fixed) bell set somewhere.

TFP

[Groucho]

There are other extension sockets throughout the house but there are no phones plugged in to them.

It is not normally the phones that give the problems, but the extension wiring itself. As well as 'all the above', disconnect at the BT socket end all those you DONT need.

[rans6andrew]

One other thing you could is abandon the landline phone and enjoy the higher speed broadband. The to get back on the phone take out a VOIP (internet phone) such as Vonage. We use one to give us a second line for my business and it works well. The cost is very reasonable at around £6 per month for 24/7 incusive calls to 01, 02 & 03 numbers. You will still have to pay BT for the line though.

One quirk of our setup is that when the underground line to house got water corrosion problems the landline phone stopped working the internet phone carried on working so we could ring the fault reprting service.

Rans6...........