Solwise ADSL-NTEFACE-SOL ADSL Faceplate Splitter for NTE5

This front-plate was easy to fit and produced a significant increase in the down-stream noise margin of my line from 17db to 22db with much greater stability. It also decreased the line attenuation from 29db to 27db more or less immediately. It will take some time before the situation stabilises to see if the result will be greater download speeds and less router reboots, although initial results are very promising. I used to enjoy a stable ADSL service for months on-end but then BT "upgraded" my exchange and the link became eratic. Before the new face-plate was fitted, my ADSL link was going down briefly more or less every day. That has now stopped. The link is stable again and hopefully BT's exchange equipment will increase my downlink speed in-line with the increased stability. I have downloaded a screen capture from the excellent Routerstats programme which shows the noise margin before and after the faceplate was fitted. The increase in noise margin is self-evident, as is the increased stability. In fact, my downstream connection rate increased from 4,500 to 6,600 kbs within three days, and, after ten days of stability, the BT exchange equipment raised this to 9,724 kbs, the highest I have ever received. Postscript: by the end of June my downstream rate has increased to 14,000 downstream, 1,176 upstream at 6db noise margin; it remains to be seen whether the link will hold at this rate. Besides a much improved performance over the BT "i-plate" that it replaced, there is no longer a requirement for messy individual filters on each of my extensions. The Solwise web site gives an excellent account of how and why these things work and the instructions supplied with the faceplate are more than adequate. As one of the other reviewers suggests, you need to be able to place the ISDN router next to the master-socket and face-plate in order to get the lowest possible noise ratings. The face-plate provides for an un-filtered extension line to be installed if a remote router location is unavoidable, but this does risk increasing the line-noise. The optimum solution is to have the router as close to the master-socket as possible with Cat 5 cabling from the router back to computers and remote access points. No special fitting expertise is required so long as you follow the supplied instructions carefully. In my case it took just ten minutes from start to finish. An insulation displacement tool is useful for fitting any extension cable wiring, but not essential if you are careful and use something like a jeweller's screwdriver to push the cable into the terminal.

Ok, two reviews. First one is the quick one. The second is a little more detailed if you have been chasing for better internet speeds. It could give you some good help! Review one – Brilliant. Buy it. End of Review two – this is the tail end of a long process on how to get a good broadband connection. Our area is not the greatest and we are on BT. We tested 2 up and 0.5 down. Pretty bad. But after cursing BT I looked into this more and realised the issue was on us. The router is upstairs on a phone extension. The first trick is to connect directly to the master socket under the NTE5 face plate. Magically we were seeing 30 up and 5 down! It was clear the phone extensions were the problem. If you get a similar finding buy this as the absolute essential accessory. It filters out the phone extensions which no longer need DSL filters. The next issue this caused is that the router has to be wired to the master socket which is in the font landing. Not great. To get Ethernet upstairs I use the devolo 1200+ powerline adapters, although this required a socket to be fitted in the box with the master socket on the same ring as upstairs. Also this means the router would not fit in the space by the master socket or has reduced wireless signal. The fix (quite costly but necessary for me running my business from home) is a Vigor modem (DSL modem only on Ethernet) in the box by the master socket and the router on the Ethernet elsewhere. These secondary matters will just be tailored to what you need, but absolutely I recommend this. I was stunned at how much the phone extension ruin the broadband. You may get very much different results in your own building or on differing ISP services but this worked for me.

The item is well made and very easy to install. Simply remove the lower half of the BT master socket, plug it in and do up the screws - two sets of longer screws are supplied to fit different types of socket. Note that you must have the modern NTE5 master socket - it may have BT Openreach printed on it and it is split into lower and upper halves. Search 'BT Master Socket type' if you are not sure. I don't have any wired extensions, so didn't try making connections on the back of the new plate. Did it improve my broadband connection? I did notice an improvement in data rate and signal to noise margin on the router stats. Any increase will happen over weeks rather than days - the exchange equipment will determine the best speed of your connection and this takes time. The connection does seem more stable and less liable to dropouts - important if you stream Internet radio and the like. I live about 2 km from the exchange in an area with no fibre provision, so I can't expect a fast ADSL connection. If you have a problem with your broadband this is worth a try - for less than a tenner including delivery it won't break the bank.