Comment by iforgotpassword

This was the norm in Germany for a while. Then we got a law ("Routerfreiheit") that forces ISPs to allow you to use and modem/router you want. Before that you couldn't do it with DOCSIS, but it kinda worked with DSL, if you could somehow get the PPPoE credentials.

Nowadays they have to provide PPPoE and voip credentials, and cable providers need to provide a service where you give them the Mac of your own modem and then it gets tied to your contract.