The invention provide a street lighting system that includes a plurality of Light Emitting Diode based street lamps, wherein each of the Light Emitting Diode based street lamps includes a Light Emitting Diode light source, a control circuit connected to the Light Emitting Diode light source and a communication transceiver electrically coupled to the control circuit. The control circuit is enabled to collect data from peripheral devices attached to the Light Emitting Diode based street lamps and transmits the collected data through the communication transceiver. Also provided is an electrical distribution network that supplies electrical power to each of said Light Emitting Diode based street lamps and a central server connected to the electrical distribution network, wherein the central server controls operation of each of the Light Emitting Diode based street lamps and is connected to the control circuit through the electrical distribution network such that it can send and receive signals from the control circuit via the communication transceiver.