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Some rural Minnesota telephone companies are gearing up for what they hope will be a reverse migration from the Twin Cities. Two Minnesota communities are part of a national pilot project to offer high-speed fiber-optic connections to rural residents, making telecommuting possible in even the most remote areas.

THE EAST OTTERTAIL TELEPHONE COMPANY in Perham serves about 17,000 consumers in the heart of Minnesota lake country. Many of its customers still have copper phone lines installed in the 1950s and 60s, but about 80 customers scattered among the lakes and small farms have taken a quantum leap to the future. They have fiber-optic cable directly to their homes.

Marlin Brutlog is one of customers in the fiber-to-the-home project. He logs onto the Internet from the den of his log home in rural Ottertail County several times a day.

Brutlog: I'm in contact with a teacher in Michigan, and my family in St. Louis and Washington DC. It's cheaper than making a phone call every time and more fun.

Companies like East Ottertail Telephone see advanced telecommunications as the economic future of rural areas. Operations Director Don Swenson says people have been leaving small towns for Minnesota's cities for twenty years. He thinks technology can bring people back.

Swenson: There is a migration of people from the metro areas wanting to come back to the small towns. With the telecommunications available they can do that. They can be a professional with a market in Minneapolis and St. Paul and yet operate their business in Perham or New York Mills.

The federal government is funding part of the pilot fiber-to-the-home project through the Agriculture Department's Rural Utilities Service (RUS). Adam Golodner is deputy administrator of the RUS. He says policy makers have not committed to providing universal access to high-speed broad-band technology.

Golodner: We do encourage the development of technology that would bring broad band to the home at reasonable cost to meet the growing demand in rural areas by citizens who recognize perhaps more than citizens in urban areas that telecommunications shrinks time, distance, and space.

A Bemidji company is betting its future on public demand for high-tech connections to the home. Optical Solutions is the leader in developing affordable electronics that will allow fiber-optic cable to tie into the homes' existing telephone wiring. Company marketing director Keith Carlson says demand is growing, and it's a race with huge markets at stake.

Carlson: You could say every house in the US - every house in the world potentially - that comes to an uncomprehendable number - billions of dollars. That's the type of market sitting there. There are a lot of people moving in the same direction.

Swenson: I think we'll be left up to our own designs and wherewithal to provide cutting-edge technology and service to rural areas. I don't think we'll see a lot of subsidization from the federal government or the state.