I have telecommuted for the past 5 years. It was an interesting process in how it came about. I was commuting from Asheville, NC to Charlotte, NC, a 3 hour drive. Renting an apartment and going home on the weekends. My immediate boss (the project manager) was all for the telecommuting idea, but the upper-level mgmt. was wary of it.

After 2 years of this, I got sick of it, quit my job and my spouse and I moved to Oregon. After 8 months, the guy who replaced me left the job suddenly, my old boss tracked me down and asked me to work for them again, telecommuting from Oregon. In this case, the cost-effectiveness of having someone familiar with the code outweighed any misgivings that upper-level mgmt had. Also, I was familiar with everyone in the communication chain, having worked with them personally for 2 years.

My job was an ideal one for this. Software development and maintenance in which the code base that I had helped develop in my first 2 years was what I was extending and maintaining. We had approximately monthly conference calls and typically a couple of weekly communications with the project leader and QA person.

Well the company went belly-up and my job just recently disappeared, leaving my in a slightly earlier than expected (but not unwelcome) retirement.