Cox@Home Network, a high-speed Internet service, was launched yesterday to Cox Cable customers in the Mission Viejo area of Orange County, California. This follows similar @Home launches earlier in the year in Fremont, California (with TCI cable) and Baltimore, Maryland (with Comcast cable).

The new service promises much. It includes a high-speed cable modem; 24-hour-a-day unlimited access to the Internet; a Netscape Navigator browser; electronic mail and chat; an Internet guide designed by @Home; and 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week customer service. The high-speed capabilities provide customers with rich graphics, CD-quality audio and real-time video.

The service does not require a telephone line, and users can simultaneous use computers and televisions connected to cable.

The system offers a broadband network allowing much more data to be transferred per second than a telephone line, minimizing the time it traditionally takes to access Web sites and download and transfer files.

As is the case with the previous roll-outs, the Mission Viejo launch is not system-wide. An @Home spokesperson says that it will be rolled out neighborhood-by-neighborhood. Currently, demand greatly exceeds availability, and @Home has had many requests for information regarding future deployment by people wanting to move to those areas.

Currently, subscribers must pay the installation charge (around $150), and pay an additional monthly fee (around $35) on top of their regular monthly cable charges.