I've no issue with BT and think they generally do a good job. Except for the over enthusiastic sales force which sent a new fibre hub and an Engineer round to remove the copper lines and install fibre to our house - which we were not told about at all, and specifically said we did not want, when we attempted to renew our contract. We had to turn the Engineer away and thus prompted research and this post to try and decide the best way forward.
I will investigate ordering a brand new FTTP service on contract to run alongside our copper service then porting our number when this is installed which will automatically cancel the existing service. Sounds a good idea so many thanks for this. Otherwise it's the "two router" solution as I'm not keen to renumber the line and hope the VOIP provider can port this from the ether within 30 days without our cherished number being lost. This is not without ongoing cost though as I've worked out that the new BT hub, on 24/7 will consume an extra 90kWh of energy per year.
I'll close this post now so thanks everyone for replying - useful discussions.
