BT have just announced a free solution which should see millions of customers in the UK benefit from faster, and more reliable connection speeds. In a series of tests carried out and publicly demonstrated in March this year, BT Wholesale engineers showed how electrical ‘noise’ from electric equipment including TV sets, Xbox 360’s DVD players and ceiling lights, could seriously interfere with the strength and reliability of a broadband connection.
BT came up with a solution to help filter out the noise and therefore dramatically improve the performance of customers connections; by installing a simple plug-in filter into a BT NTE 5 master socket (those small white Bakelite boxes with the removable front panel?).
These Interstitial Plate filters, branded as ‘I-Plates’, isolate the bell wire – the third wire which runs alongside the pair of cables which carry broadband and telephone signals to and from the house – from the exterior interference.
Alternatively, you could isolate the bell wire yourself by simply cutting the wire out, but understandably not all punters are keen to do this, at risk of cutting the wrong wire and sabotaging their own connection. The tests in March showed how a noisy ADSL connection running at around 700kps jumped up to 3.8Mbps when an I-Plate was fitted to the master socket.
No notice yet if BT are planning to charge customers for an I-Plate, or if they plan to given them away free to BT Total Broadband customers, or any customers paying out their line rental to BT.
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