This isn’t strictly limited to cable companies, telecom wants their pound of flesh too.

Verizon seems to be doing this now, too. My former apartment complex used to let you choose between Comcast or FiOS and now it’s locked to FiOS only.

Now before the foamy-dweeb parade of “omg who wants Comcast” rolls around, do note: Verizon is limited to 1000/1000 (well more like 950/950), and I could rarely get more than 600mbit both ways. Comcast recently introduced 2000/200 in my area but is intending to go faster, and they’re farther along in their plans than Verizon’s multi-gig strategy.