BT Wholesale's iPlate (interstitial plate) device has finally become official, even though it has technically been available for over a month from several online stores and UK ISPs. The iPlate is a simple self-installable box, which plugs into your BT NTE 5 master socket telephone extension box and adds a choke in series with the ring-wire to filter out RF interference.

Filtering out such interference can have a number of crucial benefits, from helping to make an ADSL/ADSL2+ based broadband connection more stable to improving speed:


In a benchmark survey of 36,000 lines, BT claimed that filtered broadband lines typically showed a speed increase of up to 1.5Mbps, with some lines showing speed improvements of as much as 4Mbps. However some people will see little to no benefit from using one.

The BT NTE 5 master socket can be easily identified by the horizontal split in the face plate and BT logo. All consumers need do is simply unscrew the face plate, clip the I-Plate in place in the socket and replace the face plate over the I-Plate.

BT estimates that seven out of ten UK homes have this type of BT NTE 5 master socket and home wiring. To date the cheapest place we've found to buy the iPlate is Tamar @ £9.99 inc. VAT.