Telecommuters tap into office work revolution

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2007

HARDEN, Australia (AFP) — A rock holds down the snail-mail in the old oil can that serves as a letterbox at the entrance to KPMG senior manager Kelvin Brown's office.

But visitors should not be fooled: Brown, 45, is a trailblazer on the information superhighway.

Phone him at the global audit and tax network's Sydney offices and you will be put through immediately -- but he won't be there.

He will be a four-hour drive away, in his peaceful farmhouse at the end of a dirt road leading from the oil-can mailbox.

Brown is a "telecommuter," a pioneer in a worldwide phenomenon where the daily grind of the road, rail or ferry commute to work has been replaced by high-speed broadband Internet access.

"It's seamless," Brown says of the hook-up between...