I have cable phone service through my local cable & internet company and absolutely
love it. We were able to save a ton because we bundled our cable, internet, and phone together (we already had cable & internet through the company, but they gave us a discount and free installation for adding phone)- all three services are $103/month including taxes. The package also included upgraded internet service and DVR for the tv.
The few gotchas we found were:
- Obviously, the power issue.
- We have an old rotary phone in our kitchen that came with the house and we absolutely love it. We can still receive calls through it, but cannot make calls on it. It's more of a decorative item than anything, and I realize we're way behind the rest of civilization, but we were bummed when we found out it couldn't be used.
- We live in an older house, and the three previous owners had never had a television in any bedrooms or living room, only one in the basement (so only one existing cable jack) There was a phone line in the basement and in the kitchen, and the neighbors told us that one was added in a bedroom after the previous owner's spouse had a stroke in the bedroom. In order to install the phone system, we had to have several holes drilled throughout our house. They ran the cable through the basement and into a spare bedroom and did a good job concealing it and everything was professional- but installation took a good two hours when all was said and done. Again, this may not be an issue if you have cable jacks throughout your house, but it was kind of a pain for us.
On call quality- I've never noticed a difference. It's very clear. I have family in other parts of my state and like that I can call them any time of day without it costing extra (free long distance).