Outside of major urban areas, there is often no bullying required. It was not economical 20+ years ago for there to be more than one physical cable or telephone provider in an area. Moving away from dial-up and DSL (which sit on top of phone lines which anyone can buy access to) toward cable (and fiber in the past decade) has put the power on the cable companies who physically own and maintain the lines. Since, in contrast to phones, cable has not typically sold access other than direct-to-customer, they maintain that same model. They don't sell access for someone who buys a fast fiber connection to then connect to the cable network and then their cable customers "dial into" that person's box. Instead, you only get service through the cable company itself.

Because cable requires a massive financial outlay, we end up with regional monopolies unless cable companies are forced to open up their physical platform to others. Which is rare.