Can someone identify this connector?

While up in the loft the other day I tracked the route out phone line comes into the house to the master socket and found this in the middle. The house was built in the mid 60s and I'd guess this is probably original to the house.

https://i.imgur.com/1tYq14J.jpg

At first glance it looks to be an old standard connector (Maybe a block terminal 20/4?) but I have no idea what the 2 rusty looking wires are (Earth maybe?). Ultimately I want to know if this could be having an affect on my VDSL. My predicted speeds are

Clean 80-71.3
Impacted 80-67

I'm actually getting 55 which although is decent and stable, I want to be sure I'm getting the best I can. The problem is that I'm using an openreach modem and therefore don't have access to any line stats. I know that as this connector is before the master socket it would be the responsibilty of openreach so just looking for comments at this point

Looks a little like a junction box, the two pairs of rusty wires are they bare metal? If so then not part of the telephone line

Yeah they're bare metal. I wasn't able to see there they go. The white cable down down through the ceiling and into the back of the mater socket

Its just a old junction box with screw terminations. The wire is a earth wire and no longer used (but can be useful for testing)

As MC31 rightly says. It’s an old bakelite screw terminal connector. The bare wires were for an earth connection which used to be required.

I’d be tempted to unscrew the single screw in the lid and carefully remove the lid ... let’s have a picture of the guts of it. Depending on the location and local conditions, the screw terminals can get corroded and produce an HR fault.

Is there any possibility that removing the earth wires would improve my connection speed?

I'll take the cover off and get a pic of the inside when I next get a chance to get up into the loft. Might not be for a while though

The earth wire isn’t connected to your pair. You’d have a huge earth ‘hum’ over the dial tone ... and it would test faulty (which you’d hope might have been picked up at some point since the property was built)

The earth wire will have been disconnected when the line stopped being a party line back in the day.

Probably best off leaving the whole thing alone.

Odd that there are something like five "earth wires". Seriously to be hoped they aren't connected to anything.

What is/was a party line?