BT Broadband Accelerator socket Free*
Quote from: puddy All my BT internal extension had been carried out by BT but £1.20 for a BT i-plate seems very good value to me to see if works if not stick it back on ebay.
You would sell something that you got for nothing?
NOT suitable = waste of effort; the circuitry is already included in those. 
Quote from: alanf The BT Shop site (see above) says that the product is NOT suitable for use with master sockets bearing the Openreach logo.
That's probably because you don't need it as the Openreach branded NT5's already have the relevant additional circuitry incorporated within - at least I'm reasonably sure that's the case anyway. There's certainly 1 or more extra components and what looks very suspiciously like an additional filter/choke that's not present in the BT original.
My guess would be that what you're actually getting here is the removable plate that is and always has been supplied as standard with Openreach branded NT5's. I also think that the modification is just an HF choke on the AT line from memory but I may well be wrong so stand by to be corrected as/when/where necessary ! Either way, the end result is not that dissimilar to disconnecting the AT line although older phones and modems should still work satisfactorily with the AT line being filtered whereas they very often wont if it is simply removed so you would have to 'regenerate' it locally by using a Master Socket rather than an Extension Socket in such instances.
Edit: Hmmmm, clearly a case of less tea supping, less munchies consumption and more typing effort required in order to avoid others posting much the same info while I'm still getting around to it !
If a filter doesn't regenerate the bell signal it should be consigned to the bin, for all sorts of good reasons. 
I bought an i-plate and it helped my connection
It stops any electrical rubbish on your extensions feeding into your ADSL signal by means of some kind of internal filter.
It stops any electrical rubbish on your extensions feeding into your ADSL signal by means of some kind of internal filter.
Quote from: 4Candles If you're using an I-plate, you still need a microfilter, or filtered socket, for every phone, [correct] and unless it's a really cheap and nasty one, it will do the 'regeneration' [of the AT signal]
Quote from: HPsauce If a filter doesn't regenerate the bell signal it should be consigned to the bin, for all sorts of good reasons.
I'm not going to say the above statements are definitely wrong as I haven't even seen let alone used or know exactly what's inside a microfilter ... however, I am going to say that I find it somewhat difficult to believe. It's been a very long time since I was involved in telecom design but from my (often poor) memory, the AT line is/was derived using a 1.8uF capacitor and a 47K resistor in the Master Socket. In an NT5 this will be in the part that's permanently fixed to the wall and NOT in the removable plate.
The reason I doubt that any microfilter can regenerate the AT line 'officially' is simply because of the physical size of the components that are typically required. A suitably rated 1.8uF capacitor for instance is getting on for the size of your little finger ! OK, maybe not quite that big, perhaps about half as long but around the same diameter. It's by no means a small beast that's for sure even given modern production methods etc. I therefore find it quite hard to believe that a microfilter can contain much in the way of LF circuitry in general simply because of the physical size constraints.
Of course, there are no doubt various other ways of satisfying older equipment that thinks it really 'needs' the AT line connected so maybe something else is implemented in a typical microfilter in order to try and 'fool' older equipment into working but I really can't see an appropriate 1.8uF cap being shoehorned in there ! Any alternative to the 'official' method is not necessarily guaranteed to work in all instances of course but having said that, I doubt any reasonably modern equipment cares too much whether the AT line is present or not and if so, exactly how it's being generated. There are only likely to be issues with pretty old stuff in general.
I think I would expect a microfilter to simply contain HF filtering to severely attenuate DSL signals on the 'phone socket rather than do anything much in the way of LF stuff. As always, I may well be wrong and stand by to be corrected and all that ! Just out of morbid curiosity, I'd certainly be very interested to see a schematic of a typical microfilter if anyone has any reliable info lying around.
I'd certainly put (a quite considerable sum of) money on the revised design of the removable plate for an NT5 simply containing a choke (inductor) in the AT line and nothing much else. Although It would have to be a somewhat lesser sum of money on a microfilter containing simply HF filtering just to keep non-voiceband signals from reaching the phone and nothing much else - even though I can't think how/why there could be anything else in there.
Quote from: itsme How does that work? If the iplate split the adsl signal from the POTS then a low pass filter can be place on the POTS side to stop high frequencies getting on to the ADSL path and therefore the ADSL modem has to plugged into the iplate/master socket and none of the extensions can be used for ADSL. But if the iplate has been designed so that the ADSL modem can be plugged into any of the extensions then no filtering can be used on the A/B pair to remove noise.
The only filtering is on the ring wire and it's cheaper just to remove this than buying an iplate.
Yes - you are right about what it does.
It's less nerve-wracking than identifying the bell wire though.
Quote from: Wheel_nut ADSLNation have pictures of most Microfilters on their site here http://www.adslnation.com/support/filters.php
Interesting, thanks very much for the link
Seems to me like 1-pair cabling is all that's really necessary then providing you don't acquire any dodgy, poorly manufactured or otherwise blatantly wrong microfilters to use around the house ! The shiny new NTE5 faceplate isn't doing anything that a pair of wire cutters can't do better 
and providing that your microfilters are up to the job then you don't need to change to Master Sockets at extensions either. I've only ever had the A/B pair routed round the place with additional filters various and master sockets as and where required even long before DSL because I had shedloads of problems with vast amounts of picked up HF on the line generally screwing some stuff up. Now I have a filtered faceplate on the NTE5 but still only route the voice A/B pair over Ye Olde wiring with just about all of the old filtering and no end of other rubbish still in-situ it has to be said ! Never gives me any grief at all these days mind you.