The primary drawback we encountered when considering using the cable co for data, tv and phone was that the home phone service is kaput when power goes down. That messes up our residential alarm system that uses the phone line to report when a sensor is tripped or smoke alarms are activated. I don't know about the rest of the country but our local power company has been known to power down a generation facility unexpectedly at times, but it doesn't affect the hardwired phone lines and the el cheapo phones from working.