i-plate

[#1]

You're right, must have been my telepathy rather than telephony. I'll get another intake of caffeine and wake up! That aside, it's still a case of trying to confirm what type/role this downstairs "master" is/plays as deekay doesn't have a digital camera. Don't want to give hurried advice, as we aren't there to fix it!

[#2]

Quote

deekay doesn't have a digital camera.

Does he know soemone with a camera who might help ? It's going to be much easier with photos.

[#3]

Thank you all for your help.
Just re-checked.
It's *definitely* green and black to the downstairs faceplate.
If I unplug the downstairs faceplate, both the upstairs and the downstairs phones are dead.
The upstairs socket is definitely: orange connected to 2, green to 3, black to 4, white to 5.
Can't check the outside box again at the moment as it's raining.
I'll try to borrow a digital camera, but it may take a few days.
Cheers.
Keith.

[#4]

That's fine Keith, don't bother with the Outside box again, nobody is questioning what you said, just debating the unconventional aspects and that is nothing to be concerned about. (It's raining here too!)
Go ahead and remove 3&4 from the Upstairs socket. You may well see an improvement in your sync speed. This is a similar effect to what an i-plate would be doing, but you can only fit i-plates to a specific type of NTE5 Master LineBox and even then no increase is guaranteed but it is usually effective.
The fact that the upstairs is dead when the front plate downstairs is removed shows that downstairs is indeed some sort of master. All we nned to do now is establish whether this downstairs socket has a Surge Arrester, Capacitor and Out of Service Resistor. If and only if it has, then you would be able to change your upstairs socket for a Filtered Faceplate with Phone and ADSL sockets. You'd still need to use a quality Filter downstairs for the phone though.

[#5]

Anotherone.
The downstairs faceplate has nothing whatever on the back of it (apart from the terminal blocks). There is definitely no printed circuit board, and no components visable. Airing my lack of knowledge of phone wiring, I suppose that there may be a possibility that they are hidden inside the back part of the downstairs socket.
I will now disconnect 3&4 from the upstairs socket and see what that does to my speed.
Cheers
Keith

[#6]

Does it look like

[#7]

itsme.
Yes! That's the socket!!
Thanks.
Keith

[#8]

That's the one I remembered I'd seen but couldn't find a pic

[#9]

Doh, It was on the top RHS of Kitz page after all - I should have gone to specsavers 
Not the type that will take an i-plate (according to BT) -
http://www.shop.bt.com/articles/promotions/product-promotions/bt-i-plate---will-it-work-for-me--5124...

[#10]

Surely that socket is just the early version of the NTE5A, with six terminals on the face plate instead of the later four.
Why wont that take an IPlate?
Not that it will make any difference if the OP disconnects the ring wire from the upstairs socket as suggested by Anotherone

[#11]

Putting an iPlate on the downstairs socket will make no difference, as there is no bell wire attached to it.
Removing the bell wire from the upstairs socket might make a difference, and put simply there is no reason to have anything connected other than 2&5 - just disconnect everything else, and don't bother with an iPlate at all.
Saves £10, achieves the same result.
Also, since you are doing nothing with the master socket, it makes no difference to anybody if you pull the bell wire out - its on your section of the circuit anyway - its not even connected to the BT netwok.

[#12]

Quote from: MisterW

Surely that socket is just the early version of the NTE5A, with six terminals on the face plate instead of the later four. Why wont that take an IPlate? Not that it will make any difference if the OP disconnects the ring wire from the upstairs socket as suggested by Anotherone

Need knife/cutters to make it fit.

[#13]

Yep, it's a physical interchageabilty issue, and BT will get upset if you did cut it, that's their bit

[#14]

Quote

Yep, it's a physical interchageabilty issue,

Thanks for that, I didnt realise the backplates were shaped differently.
Let's hope removing the bell wire has some beneficial effect. If the upstairs socket had been a normal extension then I guess removing would have made little difference since it isn't connected to the real master socket via the junction box, but if the socket upstairs is a 'master' with ring capacitor and resistor then removing the bell wire may well have some effect. 

[#15]

Undoubtedly, it should have an effect, especially as it runs around outside of the house - a nice MW aerial
Anyway, now we've got that cleared up, deekay can replace the extension socket upstairs with an extension dual filtered plate if he wants.