Excite@Home's (ATHM) service will pass by an additional 15.3 million homes, expanding Excite@Home's worldwide coverage to 87.3 million households. Ultimately, about two-thirds of US households will be served by Excite@Home.

In turn, Rhythms (RTHM) will make a $15 million investment in @Home Solutions, an affiliate of Excite@Home.

Both companies will contribute market development funds for the new service, which will roll out in late summer or early fall.

"Adding over 15 million new homes offers strong validation of our broadband services and content as deployed over DSL," said George Bell, president and chief executive officer of Excite@Home.

"We are committed to multiple broadband platforms to leverage our world-class backbone and network. Rhythms has a very sophisticated, flexible network that is fully ready to benefit from line sharing, an important capability, in the coming months."

Last month, Excite@Home launched its portal for high-speed Internet connections to offer "rich" Web content. The portal offers users the much sought after feature of portal customization.