Erol's

Erol's Inc.

Company type	Private
Industry	Video rental, electronics sales, repair services, internet service provider
Founded	1963
Founder	Erol Onaran
Defunct	1990
Fate	Acquired by Blockbuster Video
Headquarters	Springfield, Virginia , United States
Area served	United States (five states and the District of Columbia)
Key people	Erol Onaran (founder), Orhan Onaran (manager of ISP operations)
Products	Video rentals, electronics sales, repair services, internet service provision

Erol's denotes any of three enterprises established by Erol Onaran, a Turkish immigrant who settled in Virginia, United States.

Erol's Inc.

Founded in 1963, Erol's Inc. operated as a company specializing in video rentals, electronics sales, and repair services, incorporating video rental offerings starting in 1980. By 1985, it had grown to become the largest privately held videocassette rental business in the United States. In 1990, the company was acquired by Blockbuster Video for $40 million (~$Template:Format price adjusted for inflation). At that time, Erol's ranked as the third-largest video rental chain nationwide, with 208 stores spanning five states plus the District of Columbia. The brand's success inspired imitators; notably, in Chile during the late 1980s, Juan Pablo Correa launched a similar operation named "Errol's" (with two R's), adopting the original’s color scheme and typeface. This Chilean company further expanded by opening several video rental outlets under the Errol's name in Argentina and Bolivia throughout the 1990s.

Erol's Internet

Following the sale of his video rental chain, Erol Onaran reinvested in his television repair business and expanded into computer sales and repairs. In the mid-1990s, he launched an Internet service provider called Erol's Internet, headquartered at 7921 Woodruff Court in Springfield, Virginia—its longstanding base of operations. This ISP served as a primary competitor to AOL as well as smaller providers like ClarkNet and CAIS within the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. Under Erol Onaran’s ownership, day-to-day management was handled by his son Orhan Onaran. The ISP offered fundamental dial-up connectivity along with email accounts and web hosting space; Unix shell accounts were initially available as well. Unlike AOL, Erol's Internet did not curate subscriber content extensively, although limited efforts were made toward this later on. Its appeal stemmed from locally based customer support and competitive pricing—at one point offering five-year dial-up contracts for just over $300, reducing monthly fees well below the typical $19.95 charged by rivals.

While primarily catering to residential users, a division named Business Services Group (BSG) was created to serve corporate clients with offerings such as custom domain registrations with associated websites and email services, RealAudio streaming, dedicated server hosting, and allocation of static IP addresses or network blocks. BSG was discontinued within two years; however, some business-focused services continued for several years afterward.

In the late 1990s, Erol's aimed to become publicly traded and initiated preparations for an initial public offering. Instead, its Internet operations were sold to RCN. The service was rebranded as Erols Internet (dropping the apostrophe). Over time, the prominence of the Erols brand diminished in favor of Starpower and subsequently RCN branding, though the original domain name still redirects to RCN servers.

Erol's Computer

The Onaran family maintained a small retail outlet named Erol's Computer within the Ravensworth shopping center nearby. This store specialized in selling computer components and provided repair services for computers and video devices. Over time, the business broadened its offerings to include a limited range of DVD rentals. The location occupied by this store was formerly one of their previous video rental shops, which had been taken over by Blockbuster Video before reverting back to an Erol's establishment. Subsequently, the store relocated along the same street, close to its former ISP headquarters, settling into a repurposed storage facility at 5232 Port Royal Road, Springfield, Va., where it operated under the name Erol's TV-VCR & Computer Service.

External links

• RCN Corporation