What we're learning now is that commuting may not be all that necessary and it certainly isn't all that desirable for many reasons. We commute so we can be where the work is done. Now, some folks will always have to commute, such as the barber or the gardener, because their services need to be applied directly. But many other workers are discovering they don't have to be where they thought they would. Physicians can now treat some remote patients through the use of data links where they can monitor everything from a live EKG to a television close-up of a rash.
Lawyers can do their research via online law libraries instead of using paper-based books.
But the technology has trickled down to even some of the more-casual occupations. Pizza companies have programs where order takers can log in from home, dial in to a special phone line to deal with customers and then transmit the orders directly via computer to the store where the pizza is made and delivered. Highway toll collectors on the new Highway 407 in Toronto sit behind monitors a few miles away and simply record license numbers as they're grabbed by cameras. Many sales professionals now use mobile computers and telephones and hardly even see the inside of an office. Let's go back to the fibre optic cable that piqued my interest in the topic.