My blog post last September on the broadband-boosting iPlate generated huge interest from people looking for a cheap way to increase their internet speeds. The good news is that it’s now even cheaper. Last autumn the device cost £14.81 inc VAT and delivery. Now, it can be bought from for only £9.29 on Broadbandbuyer.co.uk, making it an even more tempting gamble.  

Why’s it a gamble? Because the iPlate won’t improve the speeds of every ADSL connection. Jonathan Bray and I both saw speed boosts of between 53%-63%, but unless your connection is suffering from electrical interference, it might not have an effect. Of the people who commented on the last blog post, four saw an improvement (one of almost 100%), one saw no difference and two reported actual drops in speed after fitting the iPlate (for reasons that aren’t entirely clear).

Those extremely anecdotal figures are backed-up by BT’s far more comprehensive research. I asked the company if it had any more up-to-date figure on iPlate success rates last week, and it told me that “recent trials involving one UK ISP found that over 70% of their trialists benefited from speed increases, with two triallists achieving speed increases of between 300% and 330%.”

One thing that wasn’t made clear in the original blog post was whether the iPlate worked with non-BT lines or ADSL2+ connections. The answer in both cases is yes, the iPlate should work with any type of ADSL connection (with the exceptions mentioned in the previous post). In fact, as ADSL2+ connections are more sensitive to interference than standard ADSL Max lines, the speed improvements could be even greater.

Let us know how you get on if you decide to wager a tenner on one.