One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine - Sir William Osler
BT WHOLESALE has started handing out a bit of kit to ISPs that filters out electrical interference in the home to provide more stable connections and faster downloads.
I-Plate, was announced by BT earlier this year, but the telecom giant sent it out yesterday.
It blocks interference from televisions, lighting and home wiring, which BT says can slow down home broadband speeds.
BT said that 70 per cent of UK homes with a BT NTE 5 master socket are eligible for an I-Plate and the technology typically showed a speed increase of up to 1.5Mbps. Some lines showed speed improvements of as much as 4Mbps.
BT said the technology could help punters who live some distance from their local telephone exchange. Some, who were previously just beyond the reach of a broadband service, may now be able access the high-speed Web.
Punters have to talk to their ISP, rather than BT Wholesale, to get their hands on an I-Plate.
Some ISPs have been talking about giving the kit to punters for free, but BT said it could cost about £10. µ
L'Inq
Think
Broadband
This story was a bit thin on the details and confusing since ADSL already uses filters so I googled and found this to be what it is for:

"The imbalance and noise pick-up due to the ring wire used in phone wiring in the home in the UK has been known about for some time. In the past the solutions have been to fit an ADSL faceplate to the master socket, or manually remove the ring wire."
source:
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3461-new-tool-on-its-way-to-bt-wholesale-armoury.html
You know what Karoo in Hull don't believe these work as they stopped selling them because they say there was no gain. They continue to install 2 blocks for phone lines because it was cheaper I managed to argue to get them to change it to 1 newer block if I can fit this I am going to buy it for sure.

Karoo at that good there techies didn't even know about the Zone Alarm firewall fiasco with that Microsoft Patch I had to tell them about it and even tell them ZA released a new version that fixes it.
they are already up on the bay and I have on one its way...

I'll post back here if it helps at all.
ADSLNation have had a faceplate out for ages. The XTE-2005

http://www.adslnation.com/phpapps/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=105

I got a 2.5Mbps increase when I installed mine
proper link here...
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3725-final-full-launch-of-bt-wholesale-i-plate.html

I would not call a faceplate a gadget.. AFAIK all it does ids disconnect the ring wire.. For the daring, here is how to cut it...
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/faq/sections/radsl.html#235

and how to fit an ADSL faceplate..
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/faq/sections/install.html#226

get them here...
http://www.adslnation.com/products/xte2005.php

http://www.solwise.co.uk/adsl_splitters.htm
I have been complaining for 2 years now to my ISP (Karoo) about measly speeds. I suggested to their customer services and tech support that I believe I should have an NTE5 fitted as all I have is the very old master socket (early 70's) I was "informed" that this would make no difference to my speeds. Only after being on the phone for 1hr did the guy (who to be fair at least investigated the data) say that I should have an NTE5 fitted first, so presto, they are to fit one monday. Hopefully my speeds will increase accordingly!
Rather than buy an I Plate you can just disconnect the bell wire. Easy enough see a good guide at:
http://broadband-speedup.blogspot.com/
or google for more...