Don't buy BT I-Plate, says stockist
- Mon, 21 Sep 2009
- Comments (10)
The BT I-Plate is unnecessary and you shouldn't buy it, a company offering the item for sale has said.
Solwise says that the I-Plate, which BT claims can improve your broadband speed by up to 1.5Mbps when fitted to your home phone socket, isn't worth buying.
The I-Plate is a self-install filter which needs to be fitted in between the front and back plate of the BT NTE 5 master telephone socket.
The I-Plate disables the bell wire that was used to make older telephones ring. Solwise, however, suggests a manual solution to disable the bell wire.
"The Solwise solution to this problem would be to detach the front section of your master socket and disconnect the bell-wire(s) (from pin 3) and re-fit the faceplate," the company said in an email.
"The BT solution is called the iPlate! This device places a filter on the bell-wire (which remember is not required!)," the email continued.
Solwise is selling the I-Plate for £5.90 including VAT. The BT Shop is selling it for £5.86.
A BT spokesman told Web User: "We couldn't comment on whether Solwise's instructions would be a successful alternative. The I-Plate has been fully tested and we know it gets results, and it's more convenient than fiddling about in the socket yourself."
The spokesman also pointed out that the master socket belongs to BT and shouldn't be tampered with.
Comments
Latest comments
September 24 08:42
Alan
The fact is that, although most people that read this are technologically minded, many people in the country are not. What BT have offered here is a solution to a common problem - the alternative is people fiddling around in their master socket. Believe me, at least 50% of people would do some kind of damage, and then no doubt expect BT to come and fix it for free. I imagine they'd then claim that it was BT's property and wouldn't be so adamant it was their own.
October 07 22:04
David C (Telecoms designer)
Solwise are talking rubbish, Their solution will stop any legal phones from ringing as it is a requirement of the spec.
The BT I-Plate places extra filtering to stop the lower frequency noise being induced in wiring.
The best solution is to place a single ADSL filter at your master socket, and run two seperate circuits from there, one for telephones and one for data.
THe BT ADSL plate for there NTE5 master socket does exactly this.
using only one filter also reduces losses.
you can also place a 22mH choke in series with the bell wire, which is what the I-Plate does, it does have some other filtering but it is suggested on several web sites that the main improvment is the choke in the bell wire.
November 08 23:12
Thomas Dixon
I don't know if it is just a coincidence but I purchased and installed a BT I-Plate approximately two months ago, my ISP being TalkTalk.
Prior to installation I had been getting around a 4900kbps downstream connection speed reported by my Netgear DG834 router, now that things have settled down the DG834 is reporting a downstream connection speed of 8128 kbps, this has been solid for quite a while now.
To me this is definitely money well spent, installation was a breeze and the results speak for themselves.
For the price I would say go for it.
November 22 19:39
Guy Mayhew
The iPlate is a the only fully tested and BT approved solution for isolating the Ring-Wire, removing the amount of noise on a line, thus increasing the speed.
ISP's are started to provide iPlate's free of charge, with BT being the first marketing it as the "Broadband Booster". TalkTalk was the next to offer the iPlate free with their Pro package.
The iPlate is especially useful for people who may not be comfortable with tampering physically with the connections to their master socket, or perhaps those who do not have the required tools to rectify any problems (for example an IDC insertion tool).