Today, many families are struggling to stay connected with each other when they are on different parts of the world. For example, Dr. Ghosh, an assistant professor at University of Pennsylvania, is about 9,000 miles away from the rest of his family in New Zealand. Since travelling back and forth is very expensive, Dr. Ghosh has to find other ways to communicate with his family. Emails and picture are great for the family but when people are apart for long time eventually they want to talk to each other. Dr. Ghosh uses a software called Skype to talk to his family. Skype is a software that enables users to transmit their voices and images through the Interent. "We talk in the morning and around dinner, when my wife needs my help the most," (Dr. Ghosh). In 2006, the Census Bureau reported that 3.6 million married Americans (not including separated couples) were living apart from their spouses. In March, Worldwide ERC, the association for work-force mobility, released a report revealing that three-fourths of the 174 relocation agents surveyed had dealt with at least one commuter marriage in 2007, a 53 percent increase since 2003.

NY TIMES ARTICLE