Productivity, the Internet, availability of low cost computing and networking are shaping this irreversible trend. Fortune 5000 corporations are embracing this workplace shift for solid business reasons, including; productivity gains, employee recruitment and retention, and facilities cost avoidance. The shift in the workplace exposes new telecommunting infrastructure changes and imposes flexibility in a new extended workplace within employees personal residence.

    Management is forced to consider answers to several questions: First, what are the hard-dollar costs, components, ways and means to support the remote and mobile worker? Second, what alternatives exist to provide needed data and voice connectivity without overburdening Enterprise resources or compromising security?   The essential elements of remote workforce connectivity solutions can be boiled down to the Four P's.

· Performance
· Productivity
· Flexibility
· Expense

    Today the debate over Internet quality remains a moving target, however most seem to agree that remote work programs cannot succeed without manageable and measurable Quality of Service. Secondly, data access is in reality the minor cost component of worker connectivity to business. Voice remains the primary cost variable and equally as important, productivity and corporate image tool.

    Whatever the case or definition, the process of working from home or away using PCs, wireless technology and network connections is rapidly becoming the norm.