I've been having some strange issues with my broadband connection with it suddenly dropping the connection, then reconnecting instantly. Not a huge issue when browsing, but in an online game it kicks me out of the server, and it also could be an issue if performing a server update when the connection drops.

Anyway, that isn't what I wanted to say. Whilst investigating this issue online I came across loads of posts and sites talking about removing the bell wire (ring wire) from the house's master socket as it is no longer used by modern phones and can cause extra interference on the line and interfere with broadband speeds. Now where I love the broadband speed isn't great at the best of times. On my line I average 2-3Mbits so any speed increase is good.

So I decided to try removing the bell wire (ring wire) from the BT Master Switch, to see if there was any truth in what I was reading on many sites about it reduce line noise and increasing bandwidth. After rebooted the router my download speed has almost doubled! It was running at only 2672Kb/s (2.61Mb/s) when I tested it this morning just before I removed the wire, and is now running at 4567Kb/s (4.46Mb/s). Not ground breaking speeds by many peoples connections these days (especially those in cities or other countries), but a good speed increase for me, and I can instantly feel the speed increase when browsing websites, let alone downloading anything!

So if any of you have a BT master switch I highly recommend you try this. The master switch will be your main phone socket and it should be split with the bottom half removable with 2 screws. Unscrew it and you should see 4 wires connected to it. You want to remove the Orange/White wire which is connected to pin 3. Don't cut the wire, but remove it by teasing it out because if you ever sell your house or have a BT engineer visiting you should reconnect it.