One thing to point out that I think people are missing is that the ruling was that a government could not operate a business in a different jurisdiction.
It has nothing to do with free market or net neutrality concerns.
It still seems weird. I can think of many small municipalities around here that can't quite do things on their own. Sharing water, fire, police, electricity, sewer, gas, roads, busses, trains, schools, hospitals and garbage services with a larger town seems pretty reasonable. I mean, as long as it's not forced on any of the participants.
The internet must be really dangerous in some way to require the special regulation.
edit
"Electric is provided with a contract with the City of Wilson, however Pinetops owns and maintains all distribution lines to Pinetops citizens and businesses." [1]
"Wilson decided not to appeal the court decision and voted to terminate the service agreement with the town of Pinetops, Wilson's city spokesperson, Rebecca Agner, told Ars today."
The agreement looks like it was between the two towns. I wonder how it's fundamentally different than electricity.
I haven't read the ruling, so I'm talking a bit out of my ass here; however, that's rather nonsensical approach considering that many areas of the country have multi-jurisdictional systems in place for services. As an example, arguably the largest and most well known being the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, but is just one of many many examples[1].
Further, these type of multi-jurisdictional systems are becoming ever more important as cities continue to grow and encompass other counties (never mind other states), and the creation of (as well determining who pays for) infrastructure becomes an ever more important issue.
There could be an argument to be made that telecommunications infrastructure is a different beast than traditional mass transportation, highways, etc. However, I reject that notion out of hand as this has not been even been the first type of new infrastructure that the US has dealt with in it's history (electricity, original telecommunications (telegram/telephone) being the most obvious.)
But let's not beat around the bush, the law and the ruling are nothing more than typical bought and paid for members of a different level of government (NC is not a home rule state, and the current Republican run legislature already has a long history of gross overreach into municipal matters) creating less competition so that oligopolistic entities can make a large amount of money on the backs of the public. Time Warner Cable (Spectrum now I guess) owns the NC legislature, lock stock and barrel.
It has nothing to do with free market or net neutrality concerns.