According to Gartner, by the year 2011 46.6 million folks will work from home one day a week, with a whopping 112 million telecommuting at least one day a month. Decent news for the green crowd, of course, with it's inherent reduction of carbon output and gas utilization.

But as many telecommuters will attest (I among them) working from home is not always the blissful experience it's made out to be. In addition to obvious potential shortcomings such as connectivity/configuration problems, gear failures, and home network bandwidth contention, is the often overlooked social aspect of home-based workers. In brief: Working from home can be an often too-solitary experience. You may not always like your coworkers. But you may be surprised at how much you miss them when there aren't any around for days at a time.

Dubbed the Cisco Virtual Office and already in use by some 12,000 Cisco employees (a number the vendor expects to increase to 20,000 in 2009 and 30,000 in 2010), Cisco's latest toolset for remote access consists of multiple components that seek to alleviate the most common problems facing teleworkers today. Among them: A home router with a "Zero-Touch" methodology that makes the VPN setup and connection largely plug-and-play (and hopefully reduces overall IT help desk calls from stressed and disconnected teleworkers):

"Once the [home router] is connected to the Internet, it "calls home" and automatically downloads a pre-defined configuration that syncs with headquarters." - Cisco PR

Cisco goes on to note that back-end pieces to the platform include the Cisco Configuration Engine, which can manage image distributions to some 10,000 home routers.

Enabling the above is Cisco's 881w Integrated Services Router, which--in combination with a Cisco 7200 Series router on the back-end--facilitates the teleworker's secure connections with the corporate network, while also allowing other family members to establish and utilize their own secure Internet connections simultaneously. But the Cisco suite doesn't stop with providing access to data and applications: Also included in the package is an IP phone, potentially with both video and VoIP capabilities, providing voice and video connections between teleworkers and their peers. According to Cisco, a teleworker can even keep their standard VoIP number/extension when calling from home.

A complete solution to the isolated teleworker syndrome? No. And with a starting price of $700/seat, not the least expensive of remote options, either. But it's certainly a step in the right direction; at least until Holodeck technology progresses to the point where we can all be in the same virtual room at the same time.

More Cisco Virtual Office details on the Enterprise IT Planet Product Guide.