Charlottesville, Virginia is home to the University of Virginia, and also to Blue Ridge InternetWorks, an independent Internet service provider that has been working to fiber up the college town with gigabit Internet access. Ting, a company that we know as a discount mobile carrier, announced this week that it will buy the small ISP to enter the gigabit-capable broadband biz.

While many Americans await the coming of Google Fiber to their city, their salvation may come instead from smaller companies like Ting or (maybe) from municipal fiber networks. In the case of this acquisition, Blue Ridge InternetWorks has already laid 35 miles of fiber networks, and Ting plans to expand that network and offer service to customers in and around Charlottesville for less than $100 per month.

The company’s CEO, Eliot Noss, explained in an interview with CNET that Ting is in a better position to offer Internet service than Google, since it’s already in the business of offering communications services directly to customers. Google has many businesses, but at its core is a search company.

Noss didn’t say this, but we will: Google isn’t known for its stellar customer service when it tries selling products or services directly to consumers. That isn’t a great selling point for an Internet service provider.

Ting Mobile follows Google into gigabit-broadband biz [CNET]

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