Triple Play. It’s on everybody’s lips these days. I had the chance to speak with some good folks at iPlay3 this afternoon, and I thought I’d share some of what they’re up to.

iPlay3 is a consortium made up of NetCentrex, Envivio, and Highdeal — each a successful vendor in their own area of expertise. Together they offer an integrated triple play solution featuring voice over IP, video over IP, and a pricing/rating solution that leverages any type of broadband IP infrastructure including Fiber to the Home (FTTH), DSL, Cable, and Wireless.

Essentially the iPlay3 solution is meant to enable voice, video, and OSS services from the service provider’s headend or central office.

Lingo , the U.S. Internet broadband phone service introduced by Primus Telecommunications, Inc., in June, announced today that they will offer customers the opportunity to select international telephone numbers from cities in 12 international countries for their broadband phone service.

When a U.S. Lingo customer selects a number from an available country for their service, their family, friends, and business associates in that country can call the Lingo customer on that number at the price of an in-country local call.

These numbers, referred to as Lingo “International Universal Numbers,” allow a customer, for example, to add a local Paris or Sao Paolo phone number to their Lingo service, even though their primary home or business office is actually located in a New York. Callers in the international location(s) can then dial that number from their phone to reach the Lingo customer – at the cost of a local call.

Lingo customers currently may sign up online for two phone numbers on their Lingo phone line.

“VoIP applications will be the value-add that consumers are seeking to justify their investment in broadband. We expect that broadband Internet access and our VoIP applications will fuel each other's growth, so we're in for an exciting time in the next few years as consumer and business telephony services shift towards this new method of delivery for familiar services."

So said John Todd, CTO of VoIP Inc., regarding the company’s announcement hailing the roll-out of residential VoIP phone service, called eGlobalphone, to consumers throughout Florida.

The company has plans to expand its service footprint to Texas, Ohio, Washington, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Michigan, Minnesota, and Missouri next week. The service will be expanded to other areas in the nation over the coming months.

Much like their competition, eGlobalphone Service requires that customers have a high-speed Internet connection to the home or business. As I alluded to yesterday, competition is just heating up and we can expect a vast number of new entrants into the Consumer and Business VoIP Service provider space.

eGlobalphone Service offers consumers a number of features including:

• Call Logs, which track incoming and outgoing calling;
• Do Not Disturb, which allows customers to receive calls only when they want, while letting emergency calls ring in;
• Personal Conferencing, which enables users to set up a meeting with up to nine additional callers;
• Locate Me, which enables home phones to find customers by ringing up to five phones in sequence;
• Voicemail with eFeatures, which allows customers to hear their messages from any phone or PC and forward the voicemail to anyone on the Web via e-mail.

Service requires a plug-in Multimedia Terminal telephone adapter (MTA) provided by VoIP, Inc., and a broadband Internet connection and regular telephone supplied by the customer.

Residential plans start at $29.95/month and feature unlimited calls to the continental United States and Canada.

The tip of the iceberg is just breaking the surface.

With announcements from the likes of Verizon, AT&T, SBC, et al still generating ripples of buzz, Covad Communications splashed into the party with yesterday’s news that they will begin offering business-class VoIP services in 42 markets around the nation. And the constant stream of carriers announcing VoIP service offerings is not going to slow down any time soon.

Covad acquired VoIP services provider GoBeam back in March and what we’re seeing today is clearly a result of that investment.

Covad’s VoIP services are available in the following markets:

Allentown, PA; Atlanta, GA; Baltimore, MD;Boston, MA; Boulder, CO; Camden, NJ; Chicago, IL; Chico, CA; Colorado Springs, CO; Danbury, CT; Denver, CO; Dallas, TX; Fort Worth, TX; Fresno, CA; Gary, IN; Los Angeles, CA; Manchester, NH; Nashua, NH; Newark and Northern NJ; New York, NY; Oakland, CA; Olympia, WA; Orange County, CA; Philadelphia, PA; Phoenix, AZ; Providence, RI; Riverside, CA; Sacramento, CA; Santa Barbara, CA; San Diego, CA; San Jose, CA; San Luis Obispo, CA; San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA; Stamford, CT; Stockton, CA; Tacoma, WA; Trenton, NJ; Ventura, CA; Washington, DC; Wilmington, DE; and Worcester, MA.

Covad plans to roll out the service to all 113 major metropolitan statistical areas served by their nationwide broadband network by the end of the year.

Analysts, too, have a positive view of the news. Patrick Hurley, Director of Research at TeleChoice, Inc., had this to say: “When businesses are considering voice over IP services they shouldn't expect today’s consumer VoIP services to keep up with their needs.

Day 2. This morning’s keynote presenters, Martin Steinmann and Anna Dorcey addressed the assembled crowd of conferees and discussed the topics of Open Source and the developer’s role in society.

Starting things off, Martin Steinmann, a member of the Board of Directors of SIPFoundry, spoke to the audience on the subject of SIP and Open Source, and the opportunity created by these two major factors as they drive change and growth in telecom.

Linux and Open Source have evolved from a cult-like philosophy or religion in the early 1990’s to enjoy status today as a successful alternative to Windows and other aspirants. Mr. Steinmann pointed to the success of Apache servers and the incredible market share they enjoy in IT organizations all across the world.

Combining VoIP and Open Source, he said, yields some positive results, namely: accelerated adoption, reduced cost, and increased interoperability.

Something miraculous happens when I travel to the West Coast. All the travel companies advertising sunny California probably shudder when they hear that I'm heading out this way. I bear clouds. I bring rain when I travel to San Diego.