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Erol's refers to two companies, both founded by Erol Onaran, a Turkish immigrant to Virginia.

Erol's, Inc. was a video rental and electronic sales and repair company founded in the early 1980s. It was sold to Blockbuster Video for roughly $30 million. Its success was wide-spread enough to spawn imitations. In La Paz, Bolivia, there are several video rental stores called Erol's using the same font and red text on a yellow background for their logo.

Using the money from the sale of the video company, Erol would then expand his TV repair company and began selling and repairing computers. Soon afterwards, he created an ISP bearing his name in the mid 1990s, called Erol's Internet.

The Internet portion of the company, was sold to RCNI. It was rebranded Erols Internet (note the lack of the apostrophe). Slowly, over time, the Erols brand was reduced in favor of the Starpower and later RCN brand.

The Onaran family retained a small store in the Ravensworth, VA strip-mall under the name Erol's Computer which old computer parts and repairs computers and video equipment. It expanded later to include a modest selection of DVD rentals. It was located where one of their old video rental stores used to be, which was taken over by Blockbuster Video, which was then converted back into an Erol's store. Around 2006, the store had gone out of business, with no more Erol's presence known in the area after 20 years.

Erol's Internet

Erol's Internet was an ISP founded by Onaran in the mid 1990s. The ISP was based in Northern Virginia and was the area's main competitor to AOL. Services provided by Erol's Internet were basic dial up access with email accounts and web space. Unlike AOL, Erol's did not provide subscriber content. Erol's popularity was due to its locally based customer support, as well as cheaper prices. At one point a 5 year contract for dial up access could be purchased for just over $300, bringing the monthly cost well below $19.95, which was the average price for all other competitors.

Erol's Internet was later purchased by RCN.

External links

• "Company News; RCN To Buy Ultranet and Erol's Internet," The New York Times, January 22, 1998
• RCN Corporation
• Erols PC

• Internet service providers of the United States
• Defunct Internet service providers