BT I-plate

[#1]

Has anyone had any sort of improvement in connection speed after fitting an I-plate? 
I am currently on a fairly long line from the exchange and am getting speeds of between 0.33 - 5.2Kbps.

[#2]

Whoops! That should have read 0.32 - 0.52Kbps!

[#3]

if you have a master socket with a test socket behind you can see if fiting an i-plate will give you any improvment. the job of an i-plate is to stop the interference that can be picked up by any phone extension sockets that run of the master.
if you plug your rat tail filter in the socket below which will compeletly remove any extensions sockets you have and check what your before and after line stats are.

[#4]

Thanks for that, but I am connected directly to the master socket, everything else has been removed.  Doesn't appear worth the effort / expense of fitting an I-plate.

[#5]

It's worth trying from the test socket in case the faceplate itself is faulty.

[#6]

Will try that tonight when I get home, thanks James

[#7]

Sorry James, tried from test socket no improvement.  Still getting 0.5 ish download speed.  Tried to question BT on when / if they were going to do anything (for us out in the sticks) bearing in mind their much vaunted (and advertised) 20Mbps connection , and got an overseas  call centre ring me asking me to carry out fault diagnosis!!!!
Not impressed with BT!

[#8]

BTW Asbo Dog, if that is your own master socket, it's a darn sight cleaner than mine!

[#9]

cant be his as he has got a Derbyshire Asbo Dog

[#10]

Have now ordered I-plate, could be up to 4 weeks wait for delivery from BT!  Will try it anyawy when it arrives.

[#11]

Quote

cant be his as he has got a Derbyshire Asbo Dog

my lab retrivers pedgriee name is actualy derbyshire drover. thoe we like to call him drove derbyshire mad 
nope its not my master socket.
wish it was as i have to run direct from the test socket because the face plate connections are faulty and cause a slight drop in sync speed

[#12]

My router reports 44dB downstream attenuation, which translates into 3.1km of cable (44dB divided by the known constant of 13.81dB per km) between me and the exchange. Not bad, as it's about 4km by road and 2.3km as the crow flies. So, I can't improve that figure unless I move house or install a new wire to the exchange - both would be prohibitively expensive and inconvenient.
However, I found out about and installed the BT Wholesale I-Plate. This is DESIGNED to remove interference from bad telephone extension wiring within the home, but in my case increased broadband speed by about 20% even though I don't have any extension wiring. So for under a tenner it may be worth a punt for ANYONE suffering speed issues. http://www.shop.bt.com/products/bt-i-plate-58LT.html
You do need the right master socket to install I-Plate - see http://www.thinkbroadband.com/tools/bt-master-socket.html for a better guide than BT's.
BT Wholesale's 21CN (ADSL2+ technology) is not yet available in my area, and even if it were, I am far enough from the exchange for any benefits to be marginal, because it seems that there is indeed a distance where ADSL2+ and ADSLMax (the "up to 8Mbit" technology) come together. See the graph here: http://www.internode.on.net/residential/broadband/adsl/extreme/ (This does not give accurate speeds, probably because it's not based on UK implementation, but gives an idea).
Hope this helps someone.

[#13]

Still waiting for I-plate, but download speed has now tailed off to never above 0.37MBps:  Have tried rebooting the router:
I suppose the above equates to about 4.6Km of cable from the exchange, so a fairly long line, but I was getting up to 0.52KBps last week.

[#14]

Still no better today:

[#15]

Speed still dropping.  Raised a ticket mentioning that I understood the training period, only to be told I had to wait till the training period was up! Don't think support pers actually read the tickets!  (Been with PN since 22nd Sep!)
DSL Stats and speed check still abysmal:

DSL Connection Rate :640 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 350 Kbps
While I appreciate that I am approx 4.6Km from the exchange, I was getting up to 0.52Kbps and now can't get above 0.29Kbps, with an ever  >:(increasing S/N.