The Federal Communications Commission wants apartment residents to have the right to choose their broadband service partner and outlaw contracts in which landlords require their tenants to sign up to "bulk billing" arrangements.

Under these arrangements landlords insist that broadband, cable, and satellite service provided by a specific communications provider are used in the apartment, even if residents do not wish to take the service or would prefer to use another provider.

The FCC proposal, if passed, would allow tenants to opt out of these bulk billing arrangements and would "increase competition for communications service in these buildings by making it more profitable for competitive providers to deploy service in buildings where it is currently too expensive to serve consumers because tenants are required to take a certain provider's service," according to the notice.