BT IPlate

BigGrin

Member
Hi there, I've been lurking round here for a few weeks now and have quite enjoyed reading all you have to offer =] and i thought it polite to "give something back to the community" as it were, so here goes.

I suffer from CIC (crap internet connection),
These are my results from speedtest.net using the Manchester server.



I have had to suffer with this for the past 4 years leaving my machine on for days just to download updates, films, music ect ect even youtube is a task!! and there is/was absolutely nothing i could do about it untill now.

BT released the BT Iplate / BT Broadband Accelerator some time ago i belive but i only recently caught wind of it and wondering weather to purchase one.

So my questions are thus;
Has anybody tried this and gotten significant results?
Or are BT just palming off the public with a placebo to avoid doing any real work in updating our ancient phone lines?

Regards
Mr Grin
 

HMFC_Riley

Enthusiast
The best possible advice I can give you is if you can move to Virgin.... Do it.

Tried BT. Tried Sky. Tried numerous other ones.... Virgin trump them (at least in my area) by a considerable margin for speed and reliability.
 

BigGrin

Member
We have virgin already in my home, but due to a reluctant father who's as stubbourn as a child with sweets, will not share the connection ¬.¬.

So as a result i had a BT phone line installed in my room and got a package with Tiscali now Talk Talk :cool: .

My exchange is 5.5 miles away and shares the connection with 24,000 other users and i am on the fringe of its capability :/
 

Meds

Moderator
Moderator
We have virgin already in my home, but due to a reluctant father who's as stubbourn as a child with sweets, will not share the connection ¬.¬.

So as a result i had a BT phone line installed in my room and got a package with Tiscali now Talk Talk :cool: .

That's just mean!

In regards to the IPlate - I'm not sure as I practically live next door to my exchange and get around 15mb/s when running that speed test - I'm with O2, they're maybe worth a shot? After reading reviews on the IPlate
I would give it a go, I mean it's only a tenner so if it doesn't work out then it's not the end of the world!
 

Sweeney47

Well-known member
your distance from the exchange is what is limiting your speed, I dont think you will find any improvements regardless of what you do. The broadband signal just loses too much 'power' traveling down your phone line that theres nothing left when it reaches you. If you're 5.5 miles from the exchange, your phone line would be slightly longer than that.

Go to your router stats page and find your Line Attenuation downstream, I bet its not pretty.
 

jeebus

Active member
your distance from the exchange is what is limiting your speed, I dont think you will find any improvements regardless of what you do. The broadband signal just loses too much 'power' traveling down your phone line that theres nothing left when it reaches you. If you're 5.5 miles from the exchange, your phone line would be slightly longer than that.

Go to your router stats page and find your Line Attenuation downstream, I bet its not pretty.

This is not true to be honest. This is exactly what the device was designed for. It is worth a try for sure.
 

Sweeney47

Well-known member
This is not true to be honest. This is exactly what the device was designed for. It is worth a try for sure.

I live 700meters from my exchange, my phone line is 4.3km long (thanks BT) and from what Ive looked at etc, the IPlate will make next to no difference to me. Due to my line length im 'capped' at a max of about 3Mbps. BigGrin has a much larger phone line than even I do hence his speeds being limited so much. Getting an Iplate is not going to improve his speeds so that he suddenly get 5Mbps speeds it just doesnt work like that. He 'might' see some increase in speed but its not going to be much. The Iplate cannot defy the laws of physics if he wants to spend the money on it its up to him but im just being realistic and that he shouldnt suddenly expect uber broadband speeds. The Iplate reduces noise generated by extension wiring in the house, if you dont have extension wiring its not going to have an affect. Anything you do at your end will make next to no difference to your speeds because the exchange may be sending 8Mbps speeds to you but once it reaches you its only got 0.62Mbps speed you cant 'revive' that data or speed at the end user side of the connection. As I said... cant break the laws of physics ;)

The Iplate would work for him IF his connection speed was being slowed down because his noise margin was being increased (to make the connection more stable - constant battle between speed and stability) due to noise inside the premises (phone extensions etc) the Iplate would work because it would essentially give him his broadband signal prior to any involvement from the extension wiring, therefore, no noise or interferance. Unfortunately its not interal noise thats restricting his speeds.
 
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jeebus

Active member
Actually, i am sorry but you are wrong again. In POTS there is a wire called the bell wire which causes interference on the line which the BT IPlate filters out giving speed and reliability benefits. It is true that you cant break the laws of physics but if the bell wire is causing a 1mb signal to drop to 0.5mb then surely there is a huge benefit here for a cheap and easy to install device.

I agree it will never give him a superfast connection but i never claimed that it would but if i could double my net speed from 0.5mb to 1mb for less than £10 i would certainly give it a go.
 

Sweeney47

Well-known member
I can assure you im not wrong...

If he is truely 5.5Miles away from the exchange, his phone line is over 8KM long thats assuming it takes the most direct route to the exchange which is unlikely. Now if he meant he was 5.5KM away from the exchange then he is still on the far extremes of what ADSL is capable of. This is what is causing his issues. This is why people in rural areas are still running on dial up because they are so far from the exchange that ADSL isnt capable of supplying a service.

As I also said if there is noise on the line (or interferance as you call it) then the Iplate will work but if his distance is 5.5miles or even 5.5KM away from the exchange he is not going to see anything near a 1Mbps increase by bypassing the bell wire. The bell wire can be removed without the need for the Iplate anyway (that is if he even has a bell wire)

If he posts his router stats noise margin, line attenuation etc I can more easily determin a cause but without them its pure speculation really.
 

BigGrin

Member
Thanks for the feedback from all you wonderfull people, i have gone ahead and purchased one for £5 from ebay, worth a go eh ???

I drove to the exchange and checked the distance it was 4.7 miles i do apologise for my earlier error

and for sweeny i hope this information will be of use to you??


All i am hoping for is maybe be able to get to 1.5/2mbps.

Anyway thanks again for your insight :D much appreciated i assure you
 

Sweeney47

Well-known member
Line attenuation of 63.5 means you're phone line is about 4.6KM long (a hell of a lot closer than 4.7/5.5 miles), the good news, however, is that with that attenuation you should expect about 1.5Mbps connection speed. You have 11.5 SNR (also known as Noise Margin), the higher this is the more your speeds are restricted by the exchange. This is not uncommon on long phone lines, more places for interferance/noise. When you pick up the phone and listen to the dial tone do you hear slight pops and crackles? Essentially what the exchange does when it tries to sync a connection is it buffers itself against noise. The target SNR is about 6 (so you're 5.5 off) and this protects you against noise. If your SNR was 6 a pop or crackle on your line would cause a disconnect whereas because its 11.5 a pop or crackle is less likely to cause a disconnect but as I said before its a battle of stability and speed.

Have you disconnected a lot lately or restarted your router? One problem that might be affecting you is that the exchange has lowered your IP Profile again to compensate for the instability. The problem with this process is it can drop quite rapidly following disconnects but can take up to 3 days of uninterupted connection to see an improvement. The joys of adaptive broadband im afraid. The Iplate might help you if you have a bell wire, but its not likely to help you if your noise margin is caused by a long, old phone line.
 
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