Yes, they are moving to the gated garden, where favored vendors receive priority bandwidth:
It looks as if Comcast is preparing to move from a limited beta test to a wide release for its long-promised Xbox Live streaming video app, with some details appearing on the company’s support pages. Probably the biggest revelation about the service is that streaming Comcast’s On Demand videos through the Xbox 360 will not count towards customers’ 250GB monthly data limit.
Comcast says the Xbox app gets special treatment because the video is “being delivered over our private IP network and not the public Internet.” This gives the service a potentially large advantage over not just other video streaming apps like Netflix and Hulu Plus, but also over Comcast On Demand content streamed through the company’s website and mobile apps, both of which count against the data limits.
Enjoy your 3rd party streaming while you can, because it is not going to work reliably much longer.
I expect them to start f%$#ing with 3rd party IP telephony in the next few years as well, so buh-bye Skype.
H/t Harold Feld.